Windsor councillors trim proposed tax increase to 4.59%

Property owners in Windsor are looking at atax increase in 2023 but a slightly smaller one than originally proposed after acommittee of councillorstook a deep dive into adraft of budget and found some savings.

After meeting for four days, council's budget committee unanimously agreed to $2.8 million dollars in cuts they say won't affect services.

If those changes are passed, therewould still bea tax increase of 4.59 per cent. That's down, however, from the5.23 per cent tax hike contained in the earlier draft budget prepared by city staff as part of this year's budget process.

Ward 1 Coun. Fred Francis,the budget committee chair, says they did it by trimming down requests in individual corporate accounts, for example maintenance.

"So they might have been asking for $100,000," he said. "Instead of $100,000, we would give $50,000. In some cases they're asking for$50,000, we provided $25,000. So we were able to find those reductions in those accounts for maintenance moving forward that never existed before or were additions to current maintenance accounts."

The committee wasalso able to cut a budget request of about $900,000from Transit Windsor in half by filing the gap with money from the provincial gas tax.

Rodent control fees not moving ahead

The committee was also able to avoid instituting acharge for the rodent control program, a measure that was recommended by city staffin the draft budget.

Another idea contained in that draft was extending the hours for paid parking past 6 p.m..

The committee decided against that a decision that madethe owners of Blanche Nightclubon Ouellette Avenue happy.

"It would have been detrimental if they were making them pay because we have a lot of people that you see that come after six, and a lot of people that come from outside of Windsor that they're very happy and that they don't have to pay," said administrator DawneMartens.

Council was also able to dip into reserves to cover a modest increase in the Windsor-Essex County Health Unitbudget.

But about 1.5 per cent of the increase in expenses this yearcomes from agencies, boards and committees, so council will be looking for more savings from them.

"The feeling from the committee was it is unfair to ask only city administration and city departments to bear the brunt of reductions and not carry that same expectation over to the ABCs, the agencies, boards and committees," Francis said.

The mayor will now have a look at ways to trim and will be talking with councillors for ideas on how to do that.

City council still has to debate andapprove a finalized budget.That will happen on April 3.