Brian Bigger on freezing Sudbury taxes: 'big ideas' are needed

Sudbury'smayor said at last night's budgeting meeting that city council will need "big ideas" if it wants to freeze taxes this year.

Brian Bigger made the comments after councillors had goneover some of the cuts suggested by staff with the aim of holding the line on property taxes.

But Bigger said while staff is focused on small dollar amounts, he's thinking in the millions.

"To get to zero, we need some big ideas and some shifts and those shifts don'tnecessarilyimpact on levels of service," he said.

Bigger believes $5 millioncould be saved by reorganizing GreaterSudbury'slandfills.

He also sees the potential to raise a lot of money by selling off city buildings.

Other members of city council criticized some of the options for being too "nickel and dime" with just a few thousand dollars to be saved.

Councillor RobertKirwansaidstaff seem to have strayed from what council asked them to do.

"There was to be no reduction in service and no loss of jobs," he said. "And if you're going to take away a tipping holiday week, I don't care how you paint it, it's a reduction in service."

Several other councillors also spoke against the suggestion that the fall tipping holiday at city landfills be scrapped to bring in an additional $80,000.

City councillor Gerry Montpellier was concerned the extra revenue wouldn't be worth the cost of the extra clean up.

"Picking up garbage that will end up in the streets and sidewalks, when there's no free tipping holidays," he said.

Although, staff said they believe the tipping fee holidays have no impact on whether or not someone decides to dump illegally.

City staff also mentioned the possibility of saving tax dollars by only collecting garbage every two weeks and allowing residents to only puttwo bags on the curb.

But, the numbers on how much that would save have not yet been crunched.

Garbage numbers

Morning North5:20Debate over garbage in Sudbury budget talks

As budget deliberations continue with an eye on a zero percent tax increase from Greater Sudbury city council, talks turned to trash... more specifically, the cost of dealing with garbage. We have some highlights...

The cost of taking care of Greater Sudbury's garbage was a focus for much of last night's budget meeting.

Councillor Joscelyne Landry-Altmann was surprised that processing leaf and yard trimmings at landfills costs $1.1 million a year.

That bill largely comes from the tedious work of removing yard waste from plastic bags when they get to city landfills.
Staff suggested that requiring residents to put leaves and grass in paper bags would save the city money, but an exact figure has yet to be worked out.

Another idea would see about $120,000 saved by reducing the hours for the re-use store at the main Sudbury landfill, as well as at the transfer station in Whitefish.

All options for cutting down the city budget are set to be voted on Feb. 24, with a final vote on the budget and the setting of the 2015 tax rate expected either that week or the following week.

Sudbury city budget by the numbers

• $100,000:how much more the city is paying for stamps every year, with recent increases announced by Canada Post.
• $10,000:spent every year bringing in interpreters for people appearing at the city-run provincial offences court who don't speak English or French.
• 154:city employees are eligible to retire this year.
• 500:number of cell phones owned by the City of Greater Sudbury.
• $1.1 million:annualcost of processing leaf and yard trimmings brought to city landfills.