Saint John fails to pass 2016 budget after 2.5 hour debate

After a contentious two-and-a-half-hour debate Monday night, Saint John councillors have sent a second version of the 2016 operating budget back to the city manager for further tinkering.

At issue is just $120,000 equating to .079 per cent of the$151 million budget.

The municipality will see very little increased revenue in 2016.A $1.8 million increase in property taxes is offset by a $1 million dollar cut to the annual grant from the province.

Some additional funds were realized when the contract for the city's liability insurance for 2016 came in $583,000lower than expected.

With help from the savings on insurance premiums, the draft budget placed before councillorsrestored $270,000removed from the police budget and $90,000 removed from the fire department's budget.

It also added $100,000to public transit, the minimum needed to fend off further cuts to bus service.

However, the new draft budget did not restore funding to the city's four economic development agencies: Enterprise Saint John, Waterfront Development, Destination Marketing and Saint John Industrial Parks.

Together they would have lost $120,000from their $2 million total budget.

Cutting those agencies was too much for Mayor Mel Norton.

"To me that doesn't send a message that's consistent with the priorities that we set," said Norton.

Cuts to non-profit grants considered

It took four votesMondaynight for the mayor to finally convince enough councillors to refer the budget back to city managers for more tinkering.

Most of the council holdouts are fearful a reworked budget will result in cuts to the police and fire departments, and/or reductions to public transit services.

Coun. Shirley McAlary offers a third way.

She suggests much of the funding required for the economic development agencies can be taken from the fund that offers grants to non-profit community groups.

Under the current proposal, that fund has a $201,000budget for 2016.

"They're all community agencies and they're all very important," said McAlary.

"But they do have the opportunity to raise money from the community or from other foundations whereas fire and police and transit do not have that opportunity."

Coun.Greg Norton would be contentif cuts focused on the police and fire departments.

He questioned why the $52 million proposed for public safety is regarded as sacred by many of his fellow councillors. About $46 million of the public safety budget is alloted to the police and fire services.

The remainder funds such things as 911 dispatchers, fire hydrant maintenance and street lighting.