By Lara Fominoff @LaraFominoff on Twitter

Back to Finance Committee: Lethbridge City Council delays decision on 2019-2022 Operating Budget

Nov 26, 2018 | 6:09 PM

LETHBRIDGE –  After six days of debating and deliberating, City Council did not pass the $380 million 2019-2022 Operating Budget as expected, but rather voted 5-4 to send it back to the Finance Committee for additional amendments and debate.

Council will have another look at it and will likely approve it at its Dec. 10 regular meeting – the last regular council meeting of the year – although the hard deadline for approval is Dec. 31.

“I’ve never seen this happen before,” said Councillor Ryan Parker. “This is the first time where we’ve decided to table or delay a decision on the Operating Budget. But I think it’s good. If one member of council wants an opportunity to…absorb what’s been presented, I think it’s a great idea.”

At Monday’s meeting, Mayor Chris Spearman introduced an amendment to the budget, similar to one that Councillor Joe Mauro proposed during Finance Committee deliberations, Sat. Nov. 24. Mauro’s motion was to remove one million dollars from the Lethbridge Police Force’s $2.007 million base budget increase ask. 

All city departments were initially tasked with staying within their current budget prior to budget deliberations occurring and to absorb all inflationary costs. However, when presenting the 2019-2022 LPS budget, Chief Rob Davis told council an additional $2 million was needed in their base budget (not including new initiatives) for things like wages and benefits ($1.11 million), cannabis legalization training ($224,101), interdepartmental changes ($223,398), external pressures like increases in insurance costs ($376,972), and Mobile Data Terminals ($71,250).

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The LPS annual budget for 2018 was $33,457,282. Mauro’s motion was defeated 5-4 with Chair Ryan Parker telling the committee that they collectively “don’t understand the consequences if we remove the money.”

Spearman’s motion would keep $1.11 million in the LPS base budget, but not the $895,721 for the other needs listed above in the proposed base budget.

The motion was approved by a 6-3 vote. 

Immediately after, Councillor Jeff Carlson introduced another initiative to fund the Allied Arts Council Fee for services in the amount of $213,330 in 2019; $230,600 in 2020;$246,395 in 2021; and $286,570 in 2022. But before that motion could be voted on, Councillor Joe Mauro introduced another resolution to send the entire budget back to the Finance Committee for Dec.3, and for council to potentially approve it at its next meeting Dec. 10.

Councillor Rob Miyashiro told fellow councillors, “we’re on the verge of becoming the most wishy washy, unbelievably damaging to council’s reputation council that I’ve seen for a long time. We’ve spend 6 days on this, working through it…it really bothers me that we look so stupid. Maybe that’s just my opinion, but I really want to do something smart today and pass this budget, and let’s get back to work.”

“I totally disagree with what Councillor Miyashiro said,” said Councillor Blaine Hyggen. “We’re sitting here, dishing out…$800 or $900 million and we want to rush this through as quick as we can without, if someone needs more time, to go through initiatives.”

Hyggen also indicted he was confused by what would happen to the LPS budget reduction resolution  that had just passed. He was told by Spearman that Finance Committee would deliberate the new base budget number of $1.11 million. 

“I was reflecting on the budget over the weekend,” explained Spearman. “I thought that we did need to make an adjustment and it did need to be rational. What we needed to do was make sure all departments were following the same rules that if all were absorbing growth and all were absorbing inflation, that that should apply to everyone including the Lethbridge Police Forces.”

The worry during Finance Committee was also that if the LPS base budget ask was reduced, then money for new initiatives that were approved like the Ambassador Watch Program, Peace Officers and the PACT Team, could be affected if LPS decided to use the money approved for new initiatives instead for items in the base budget that were not approved. Spearman assured media that would not occur. 

“Council gives money to the Police Commission and the Police Commission determines how the money is spent. The difference is, as we pass the resolutions we have stop points. So they’ll be back in 2020, and we’ll be asking for quarterly reports until 2020. And if the funding doesn’t go to the initiatives that were approved, we’ll stop the funding.”

Mauro welcomed the move to take time to consider the entire budget rather than making decisions “on the fly.”

“I’m not worried at all about the public because I think the public will understand this is a process that has been…a very different process. This is the first time that I think I can actually sit and say positively that council has really heard the community. Where we’ve gotta just slow things down. We’ve gotta watch how we spend their money.”