By Greg Higgins

The cuts are coming; council to make decision in two weeks

Apr 11, 2017 | 2:00 PM

Administrators from across the province met last night and the big focus was how to make up for cuts made in the provincial budget. North Battleford was no different but so far there are no new options.

According to city manager, Jim Puffalt, administration is still working on a report to present to council providing options for what to cut to make up the nearly $2 million deficit. The discontinuation of grants in lieu of Sask Power and Energy buildings accounted for $1.1 million of the total. Since the province is returning 30 per cent of the grants, the city will get roughly $300,000 back.  

Puffalt said council will be presented with the report at the next meeting on April 24 and it will be one of the most important council meetings he has been part of.

“It is huge,” Puffalt said. “We have done a lot of work over the last five years on community safety. Now do we just go backwards on that? We’ve come to a point where we think we are providing a level of service the community expects. It is really hard to start going backwards on it and say ‘well we aren’t going to water the grass anymore and only cut the grass once every two weeks.’”

Puffalt said it all comes down to community appearance, which directly affects community safety. He called it the “broken window syndrome.” The theory is, if a community monitors and prevents minor crimes, like vandalism and public drinking, it will prevent larger crimes from happening.

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The city manager added it isn’t a one-year problem. According to Puffalt, once the grants in lieu are gone they will be gone forever. He added if North Battleford just delays certain projects to make up the difference, it will come back to bite the city eventually.

“We have to be really careful about what we do here because we could just be creating a future liability,” Puffalt said. “It could be something we can’t handle. That is the issue we are trying to wrap out heads around; figuring out what we can conceivably do and what ones we can’t.”

 Puffalt hopes the final decisions will be made at the next council meeting. If not a special council meeting will have to be scheduled. The city manager said there is a rush because the city needs to get the property tax bills out and mill rates set.

Puffalt said the main goal is finding a way to minimize impacts on property owners, infrastructure projects and services, while still providing a good level of service.

“It may not be exceptional or great any more but, we are hoping to find a way to maintain a good level of service,” Puffalt said. “Honestly, finding a way to cut $1,000 but not doing something is just a drop in the bucket. We can’t find 819,000 of those.”

Puffalt said administration is looking at how Saskatoon and Regina are handling cuts. According to the city manager those municipalities are looking at increasing property taxes along with cuts to services. Puffalt expects North Battleford to follow suit.

On Twitter @realgreghiggins.

Greg.higgins@jpbg.ca