A Chatham-Kent councillor is hoping the municipality can better examine ways to save some money without cutting corners.
Councillor Mary Clare Latimer is set to bring forward a motion during Monday's meeting that requests a service review be completed to see where Chatham-Kent can find cost savings through service centres, municipal information desks and customer service delivery.
According to Latimer, she hopes the report that comes back will look at how services are being provided, how services can be delivered differently and, if service levels are reduced, how it can be done without impacting the wellbeing of the municipality and its residents.
"It's basically looking at cost efficiencies and where we can save money without disturbing or decreasing the level of service," she explained.
Latimer said there's a real balance to be found between saving money and still provided the services that residents expect.
Something she hopes the report examines is exploring partnerships with non-profit organizations. She also hopes there's consideration to closing service centres, municipal information desks and reducing/combing services into other municipal operations for more centralized locations.
"An excellent example of that is already at Blenheim," she explained. "We have the police services, library services, and municipal services already together. That's what [we'll be] looking at."
In addition, Latimer said she wants the service review to identify changing client habits, the movement towards cashless payments and phone service delivery models as well seeing what options are available for bringing more services online, an area where she said she believes there is a big cost saving possible.
She uses COVID-19 as an example to illustrate how many services can be adopted virtually.
"Prior to COVID, nobody would consider doing it that way because they didn't think it would work," she said. "Surprisingly, here we are."
According to Latimer, many of the services in question are considered the "bones" of the municipality's base budget.
After challenging 2021 budget deliberations where council had to attempt to trim a proposed tax increase of nearly four per cent, she said she's hopeful the municipality can be in better shape going forward and be better prepared for what could potentially be even more challenging years ahead.
"There's lots of cost-saving potential there that I really think we needed to catch," she said. "It will make a big difference because next year is going to be no different than next year in regards to budget. Everything is increasing in cost and were going to be feeling the effects of COVID for several years, it's not going to be something we're going to get over in just a year."
Latimer is requesting that the cost savings report come back to council in the fall of 2021, to give enough time for possible discussions leading up to next year's budget deliberations.
'If staff do have recommendation to amalgamate services or reduce service, we want to talk about that and engage the community in time for us to be able to implement whatever we decide for the 2022 budget," she said.