City of Winnipeg's budget deliberations slip under the surface — for now

If the City of Winnipeg's budget process was the fabled Loch Ness Monster, this would be the moment the beastie has slipped below the surface of the lake.

Since October, the glimpses of Loch Ness Budget have shown humps on its back filled with severe cuts to everything from services to facilities.

The question is, in attempts to land the non-mythical budget beast onto shore, will those cuts remain attached?

Recent sightings include several waves of senior managers briefing councillors on their recommendations for cuts that would see fewer police officers on the streets, staff laid off, and pools, rinks and libraries closed — all part of city council's recent efforts to grapple with a four-year budget planning process in public meetings with department officials.

Members of the public and social service groups then rose to the surface in November, many decrying the proposed cuts, and in some cases calling for a tax increase to forestall them.

The last hump of the monster to be spotted was in the last two weeks, when councillors themselves weighed in on the cuts versus spending options.

These are undulations of Mayor Brian Bowman's new budget process he hails repeatedly as more "open and transparent" than ever before.

Now the creature has taken a deep dive as Bowman's budget working group (his executive policy committee plus two councillors) takes all the data and feedback into some far-flung room at city hall and wrestles with the age old political problem — to cut or not to cut.

Loch Ness Budget will not resurface until February, when the group presents its version of how to spend and what to save.

'Not everybody is going to be happy': Bowman 

If there is one thing Bowman is consistent about, it is how many "difficult decisions" have to be made in landing the creature that is the budget.

He has uttered warnings about the budget beast almost every year he's been office.

"The budget in general is going to be a very difficult exercise," said Bowman in December 2014.

In March 2016, it was "absolutely a very difficult budget process,"  Bowman said.

The following year brought "without question the most difficult budget we've had to draft," he said in November 2017.

This week, the mayor uttered the "D-word" nine times in a 19-minute meeting with reporters.

For some, those warning words mean this budget will cut into flesh and bone you'd rather left alone.

Perhaps not, though.

Bowman has certainly laid the groundwork for deep slices into city services and facilities, but he has made such prognostications in the past — and the results were not as dramatic as a giant reptilian creature breaking the surface of a lake.

In 2017, faced with declining participation from the Progressive Conservative government in funding the city's transit system, Bowman floated the idea of clawing back bus services.

Although there were no additional resources from the province, the cuts never materialized.

• Winnipeg mayor warns of fare hikes, cuts to 59 transit routes and 120 layoffs
• Mayor Brian Bowman grills Winnipeg police over planned layoffs, budget shortfall

Bowman also got into a scuffle with the Winnipeg Police Service in 2016, when overspending triggered a budget shortfall that could have meant layoffs to officers.

At first, the mayor and his finance team stood firm against providing police additional funds to avoid the job losses.

But days later, the cash appeared, the budget was passed and an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation was avoided.

The same and different

The context for this year's budget is the same and different from the past.

Winnipeg's infrastructure — including the city's roads and bridges, and its buildings and sports facilities — continue to groan under decades of underfunding.

 According to its own budget documents, the city is now firmly established at the bottom of Canadian municipalities for investing in its bricks and mortar and transit. It is also growing and struggling to keep up with the expansion.

It also has among the very lowest property taxes in the country.

Bowman and his finance chair, Scott Gillingham, are adamant there will be no increases past 2.33 per cent per year (dedicated to road work and rapid transit expansion).

What is different is a new multi-year balanced budget process, and the very public proposals senior staff have made to meet annual spending targets that include increases near or below the rate of inflation.

Hence the recommendations for cuts.

The budget resurfaces

Members of Bowman's own executive policy committee are likely to have multiple look-in-the-mirror moments as they struggle in this next phase. And if they (especially the more left-leaning of the contingent) can't convince the mayor and Gillingham to increase taxes, they will be loath to cut services and face the wraith of residents when a pool or library closes in their own wards.

As the current EPC members have been relatively tight-lipped about where they stand, it isn't unreasonable to ask North Kildonan Coun. Jeff Browaty what he thinks might happen next.

On council since 2006 (he is now its longest-serving member), and on and off EPC, Browaty has seen the budget beast breach the surface and slink below the waters for years.

He is, for the record, opposed to any tax increase past 2.33 per cent, noting the city is planning an organic waste pilot project and a low-income bus pass program — nice ideas, he says, that the city really can't afford these days.

"They have their work cut out for them now," Browaty said, noting there is never an appetite for closures, and predicting any really bad news could once again be pushed into the future.

"A guess — they'll find a way for 2020 to keep programs and services intact," Browaty said.

The multi-year budget process will show in 2020-21 there is a problem, he says.

So perhaps the budget serpent will slide back into the water with just a ripple as opposed to a splash.

Perhaps that's the way people like it — glimpses of the turmoil below with a modest disturbance on the surface.