Mayor Nenshi wants wage freeze for some city managers

Calgary Mayor NaheedNenshiwants to reduce the proposed property tax increase by freezing some city hallsalaries.

City council begandebating next year's budget on Monday,which at this point includes a 6.1 per cent property tax increase.

To bring that number down to 4.9 per cent,Nenshi wants to freeze the salaries of councillors and some senior staffas well asfinding $17 million in savings.

"It's a $3-billion budget so if we can't find $17 million in efficienciesthen that's a problem. And as you know, every year I try to call at the end of the budget for a little across-the-board reduction and I usually lose, but I think that those are good to actually push efficiency."

Most councillors seem to beleaning towards giving Calgarians a tax freezeor even a small tax cut by returning $52 million in tax surplus.It cameavailableafter the cityabsorbed the unused portion ofthe provincial education property tax.

ButNenshi wants to keep that money to use for flood-related expenses.

Calgarianshave their say

A handful of peopleshowedup at City Hall and wereallowed five minutes to tell council what they think about the budget.

According to Coun.Druh Farrell, Calgarians expect certain levels of city servicesbut that doesnt mean cost savings cant be found.

We're always open to looking at creative ways to do that. The goal for me is how do we do that without cutting ...front-line services, she said.

And that's always a challenge and there may be some creative ideas we haven't explored yet and that's always the opportunity with our budget process.