With a rather sizable debt looming as the elephant in the room, the members of City council will be sitting down for budget deliberations in the near future.
Councillor Greg Hoffort, who had been serving as deputy Mayor until Oct. 31, said council talks about the budget on a regular basis but he expects that much of the work will done within the next month.
"It's council's desire to get a lot of the budget work done this year, prior to the year end so we will be getting heavy into that within the next month," he said.
Work on the budget comes at a somewhat precarious time for the City. At the Oct. 28 regular meeting council voted to increase the City's debt ceiling from $45 million to $55 million to give them enough room to pay off their line of credit and also to have enough funds for important projects such as the Highway 47 rebuild. The request to increase the debt ceiling must be approved by the provincial government before it can proceed.
At the meeting it was noted by Hoffort that council is committed to getting the City's financial house in order and that all future spending will be watched closely.
However, Hoffort said during an interview Friday that council also realizes it has a city to run and that will be reflected in the budget.
"We want to address the priorities that need to continue, we have a lot of committed projects that we have to see through next year," he said. "We are certainly going to make every effort to make sure that we budget for what is necessary, as we always should.
"We are certainly not going to shut down operations, we are going to tackle our debt problem while we manage the City at the same time. There are some challenges but council is united on their goals and objectives so that is going to make things very manageable."
Hoffort said treasurer and acting city manager Jeff Ward has been working with the various departments to prepare for the budget. He added that all involved in the process understand the current financial picture and he expects a co-operative effort between the managers and council.
"Council has a lot of work to do in the budget but we rely on the expertise of our managers to a great extent so, to that end, Jeff has been working with them quite diligently to get us the information to make the decisions. I look forward to great things as does the rest of council."
