London city council’s budget committee began deliberations Thursday morning with a very different process.
It is the first budget under the new ‘strong mayor’ system, giving Mayor Josh Morgan unprecedented control over the direction of the financial document.
It appears to have left some councillors uneasy with the process, with Ward 9 Coun. Anna Hopkins looking for answers, “Can amendments be brought forward at any time? We just received the mayor’s draft budget yesterday.”
Public consultations started mid-December based on requests from city departments, boards, commissions, and other stakeholder agencies.
The mayor’s draft budget was presented on Wednesday and Morgan said they have tried to make the process as fair as possible, “Some other mayors are simply tabling a budget today that no one has ever seen before.”
The budget calls for an 8.8 per cent tax increase this year, with five per cent going directly to the police service.
Throughout his presentation on Thursday, Morgan outlined rationale for why certain areas were fully supported while others may have not received what they were looking for.
Mayor Josh Morgan outlined rationale for his draft budget before the budget committee on Feb. 1, 2024. (Gerry Dewan/CTV News London)
The mayor remained steadfast in his support for the increase to the police services budget. He believes operational changes proposed by Police Chief Thai Truong will make a difference in service delivery.
Morgan pointed to the need to address response times. While response times for the most urgent calls remain at just over nine minutes, he said code-two and code-three calls are seeing much longer waits. He explained, “Code-two is ‘my intimate partner attacked me and is gone, and isn’t in the building anymore.’ It doesn’t feel like a code-two to the person who was attacked, but that’s a code-two. That’s what’s gone to seven hours from an hour-and-a-half.”
Some councillors want to ensure that homelessness and affordable housing remain a priority.
“Yes, public safety’s a priority,” commented Ward 1 Coun. Hadleigh McAlister. “But we do also have to recognize the struggles and the situations that Londoners are in, [and] fully invest in those other areas as well.”
Councillors can request budget amendments, but even if an amendment is passed by the committee, the mayor has the power of a veto. It then requires a two-thirds majority for the adjustment to make it into the budget.
Ward 6 Coun. Sam Trosow was looking for additional funding for the library board, which is currently in line for a 5.4 per cent budget increase this year, with similar increases over the next four years.
Morgan noted the yearly increases far exceed any previous single-year increase the library board has received.
Trosow told CTV News that at this point, councillors need to have the chance to talk further with stakeholders, “I have a lot of consultation to do and we have a 30 day limit, but I just want to slow this down a little bit.”
As it stands, this budget appears to be on a path to being passed with few revisions.
Ward 10 Coun. Paul Van Meerbergen has never met a tax increase he didn’t dislike, and made it clear the prospects of an 8.8 per cent jump has him a little nauseated, exclaiming during the committee meeting, “Does anyone have a Gravol?”
This process is also part of the multi-year budget planning process, setting a course for the next four years.
The next budget session is scheduled for Friday and the process has to be wrapped up by the end of the month.
https://london.ctvnews.ca/does-anyone-have-a-gravol-a-challenging-budget-year-with-a-very-different-process-1.6752228
