From mowing less grass in parks to paying the salaries of fewer elected councillors, Red Deer city council looked at all kinds of options in the quest to find $20 million in budget savings.
Members of city council spent all of Wednesday considering 37 different service reductions that city administration had isolated from 275 service areas. Administration recommended in favour of some changes — such as getting out of photo radar and investing in more peace officers — and against others, such as making cuts to community development programs.
General manager of growth and finance Mike Olesen said, upfront, that no decisions would be made this week. This exercise was pre-preparation for November budget discussions.
Since some budget cuts had to be made through service reductions, Olesen said the point was to provide city council with more background information about various city services so they could make more informed decisions for the 2025 budget.
There were no takers in further entertaining the idea of reducing the number of members on committees or council (although the Municipal Government Act does allow for seven members of council for a city of Red Deer’s size rather than nine). But Coun. Vesna Higham suggested council could consider going to the “quadrant” ward system.
With upwards of 30 election candidates running for a spot on city council, incumbents always have the advantage because they are known, while new people have a hard time standing out in such a crowd, said Higham. She noted there could also be some cost savings as ward councillors wouldn’t necessarily have to work full-time.
But this idea was defeated by other councillors who thought wards would make municipal politics too divisive. Mayor Ken Johnston said he doesn’t want behind-the-scene competitions about what Ward 3 gets versus Ward 4, “or who has the ear of the mayor.”
Coun. Dianne Wyntjes argued it’s less divisive for all councillors to represent all areas of the city, rather than just their own turf. She didn’t like the idea of having to "swap support" with other ward representatives: “I’ll support you (on your project) if you support me.”
One change to be discussed further and potentially implemented during 2025 budget talks is eliminating photo radar within the city. Council and administration were in favour of transitioning to the conventional model of having peace officers giving out traffic tickets. Council heard even if four peace officers were added to the budget, the city would still save money by dropping photo radar.
Council was also open to having more discussions about changing the way it offers the public city archives services. Johnston said he can envision having a regional archive, perhaps named for the late city archivist and councillor Michael Dawe.
Other suggestions that council was interested in exploring further included: potentially saving $500,000 in unused funds allocated to staff training; reducing the communications budget for public participation by 20 per cent; and also lowering the plant and flower budgeting in the downtown by 20 per cent.
At the same time, council was interested in looking at various ways to increase public engagement in parks.
Replacing mandatory municipal censuses every four years with censuses that are directed by council found favour. Most councillors were also willing to have further discussions in November about reducing turf maintenance on green spaces (except for high-performance sports fields, which could attract provincial tournaments and draw out-of-town interest).
As well, councillors were willing to consider more analysis of reducing maintenance of outdoor amenities, such as tennis courts and playgrounds by 15 per cent to save $727,000, while also piloting a city sponsorship program.
One of the more divisive issues was potentially saving 30 per cent on sidewalk and concrete repairs. The majority prevailed in pushing this item forward into budget talks, even though concerns about safety and city liability were raised.
Olesen said service level reductions aren’t the only tool city council can use to trim $20 million from next year’s budget. In November, they can also debate tax increases, raising fees and other forms of revenue generation.
