Budget hike down to 1.34%, with more cuts to come

Councillors took out their budgetary scalpels Thursday night, trimming more than half a million dollars out of the potential 2015 tax increase.

That dropped the potential increase to 1.34%. It started the night at 1.73%.

The savings came from reserves in two areas, $300,000 in utility funding reserves and $240,000 from the community investment fund reserve.

The cuts began shortly after council opened “the book” – the 2015 draft budget overview binder.

Jeff Wesley and Bryon Fluker combined to move to pull $300,000 from the rate stabilization reserve to cover 2% inflation that was in the base budget for utilities.

The motion passed unanimously.

Fluker continued shortly thereafter by moving to pull 5% a year from the community investment fund reserve that sits at $4.8 million. He said the money that comes into the reserve each year offsets what goes out, so the $4.8 million is essentially just sitting there gathering dust.

The 5% translates to $240,000 this year. But councillors were concerned the amount pulled out of the reserve each year would be shrinking as the reserve amount decreased, so Chatham Coun. Darrin Canniff tweaked the motion to have it pull $240,000 a year to stabilize the funding.

East Kent Coun. David VanDamme limited the impact to encompass the next four years, expressing concern he didn’t want to bind the next council with this decision.

Thursday’s effort leaves budget chair Derek Robertson optimistic council will wrap up with the budget at its next meeting Feb. 10, and that 0% remains a good possibility.

“I think we made some great progress today,” he said. “I think we did some pretty innovative thinking with long-term business decisions with our reserves.”

Wesley urges people to not fear the notion of achieving 0%, if it is done properly.

“People think getting to 0% is unachievable and that the sky would fall in,” he said. “There is lots more to come here.”

Council also left another nearly $400,000 on the operating table Thursday, but could resume the procedure Tuesday. East Kent Coun. Steve Pinsonneault wanted to take $250,000 from lifecycle trail funding. The reserve has $2.2 million in it and is growing.

Pinsonneault said even by pulling the quarter of a million dollars out, the reserve would still be filling up with another $223,000 annually.

But administration couldn’t address some of Pinsonneault’s questions. Evelyn Bish, director of community services, had to leave the proceedings. This resulted in Pinsonneault deferring the matter to Tuesday.

Wesley will seek to remove $154,000 from recycling reserves to cover fleet repairs and automatic vehicle locators, specific to recycling.

Thomas Kelly, general manager of infrastructure and engineering was tasked with providing an update on how the recent changes to the curbside garbage limit would impact this reserve, and Wesley opted to wait until Tuesday for answers and to proceed.

Councillors pared away Thursday, with potential cuts to infrastructure looming over their own heads. On Tuesday, council deferred a motion by South Kent Coun. Trevor Thompson to zero the budget by pulling $2.6 million out of proposed increases to infrastructure funding. Thompson’s plan all along was to put the motion forward to force councillors to examine other option for savings, with infrastructure as the last-resort option.

Chatham Coun. Doug Sulman described the notion as “innovative.

“Typically, we’ve wandered around for a couple of days until we have sort of an epiphany in the last day,” he said.

That epiphany in the past has come from closed session discussions, grant money, or cash from reserves, he said. Or infrastructure.