THE CITY OF OTTAWA BUDGET 2010: NOW IS OUR CHANCE TO HAVE A VOICE!

In 2007, City Council committed itself to a Triple Bottom Line approach to our annual City budget, an approach that equally emphasizes “concern for financial, social/cultural and environmental sustainability”. Here are some principles for Council to follow to help our city balance our budget along a triple bottom line:

Make People Matter As Much As Roads and Sewers:

Taxation helps to spread the cost of city government more evenly throughout the population – the costs of roads and sewers and clean water as well as the costs of those services that help keep our residents healthy, active and productive. Increased user fees for transit and for social and recreational programs place a greater burden on families with kids, the elderly and others on fixed or low income. It means that those with less money have less access to transportation and to those social and recreational opportunities that keep people physically and emotionally healthy. A balanced city needs to support both its people and its pipes.

Ottawa Has A Unique Opportunity To Re-Invest in its Vital Community Services and Housing:

In 1995, the Government of Ontario began downloading the costs of many important social services onto its municipalities. Since then, municipal governments have struggled to meet the growing need for these services from a limited property tax base while also maintaining roads, sewers and other infrastructure. The result is a social service infrastructure, including social housing, that has been badly eroded. These are the community service organizations that partner with the City to help individuals and families in times of need. Within these organizations, many programs have been cut or operate on minimal resources and many social service staff work for salaries well below those of other sectors.

The provincial uploading now underway means that the Government of Ontario is finally taking back some of the financial responsibility for social service spending that had been downloaded. By 2018, the City of Ottawa will have about $100 million of this spending removed from the property tax base. We now have an opportunity to rebuild a vital social infrastructure that has been badly eroded for 15 years.

In 2010, the City of Ottawa will receive approximately $20 million of upload money. The Community and Protective Services Committee (CPS) recommended that this $20 million should be reinvested in CPS programs. In the 2010 draft budget, only $6.1 million of this money has been reinvested in CPS programs. What is more, only $2 million of that money has made it back into community service sector programs. While most City departments have seen some increase in this draft budget, it is important to note that the increase provided for social housing is well below the average.

Don’t Backpedal on Environmental Commitments:

Ottawa has a long way to go to become a sustainable city in which our “natural capital” - clean water, clean air, biodiversity, and a stable climate - isn’t being systematically eroded. The 2010 budget must include full funding to implement the environmentally beneficial plans that council has already adopted: the Ottawa Cycling Plan, Pedestrian Plan, and Air Quality and Climate Change Management Plan. Council must also reverse any proposed increase in transit fares, lowering fares instead, and commit the funds necessary to stem the overflow of untreated sewage and polluted stormwater run-off into our waterways.

Read our briefing note by economist David Macdonald on the 2010 Draft City Budget