Aldermen warn exemption threatens other departments
As the city grapples with a $2.5-billion debt and major budget cuts the mayor is asking council to give Calgary police a get-out-of-jail-free card — with other departments likely forced to take up the slack.
Faced with a $60-million deficit council will likely hike taxes 6.7 per cent in November — one month after the municipal election. Already city managers have told department heads to freeze hiring and look for ways to make cuts.
However Mayor Dave Bronconnier who is quitting his job this fall is bringing a notice of motion to council on July 5 to suggest the police department’s $354-million budget should be left unscathed. The police commission warns cuts will cost 120 police jobs including 65 new positions for 2011.
While mayoral candidates Ald. Ric McIver and Ald. Joe Connelly have voiced support for Bronconnier’s proposal other council members and mayoral candidates worry it will hamstring the new council and result in deep cuts to other services — particularly arts and social programs.
“The first thing that is cut is social services and support for the arts” says mayoral candidate Wayne Stewart. “Those are the things that really affect the quality of life in the city. I’d be very concerned about that if certain departments are exempted.”
Stewart a former oil and gas executive and CEO of the Calgary Homeless Foundation says many social agencies he’s been involved with are already “struggling mightily” to cope. “The demands on social agencies keep going up and up and resources are at best stable and in many cases are going down” he says.
Many arts and social programs are already reeling from drastic cuts in this year’s provincial budget. For example provincial subsidies to the Alberta Foundation for the Arts were cut 16 per cent to $29 million from $34 million while social departments such as Child and Youth Services and Housing and Urban Affairs have had their budgets slashed $36 million and $69 million respectively next year.
Ald. Bob Hawkesworth who is also running for mayor says the revenue shortfall could change by November when council makes an annual adjustment to the city’s three-year budget. Exempting one or two departments will have serious consequences he adds.
“If council says something else is exempt from budget cuts then you have to go elsewhere in the budget and you go twice as deep” says Hawkesworth. “That means somebody else in the system feels it deeper as a consequence. That’s why everybody should be concerned."
Ald. Gord Lowe also says exempting police from cuts unfairly punishes other departments and severely limits the new council’s budget options next fall. “For that reason I’m going to ask that the mayor’s motion be referred to the budget discussions in November because I don’t think it’s appropriate that this council fetter the decisions of the new mayor and council” says Lowe.
Robbie Babins-Wagner executive director of the Calgary Counselling Centre says her operation is already taking a “cautious approach” to planning. “We certainly don’t have extra dollars to be able to be frivolous” she adds.
The centre receives about six per cent of its $4-million budget from the city through the provincial-municipal Family and Community Support Services program. The city contributes about 25 per cent to the FCSS program while the province provides the rest.
Even though the city’s contribution to the centre is relatively small compared to other sources most of that money funds the centre’s domestic violence programs says Babins-Wagner. "The effects of cutting FCSS would be “quite significant” on that program she says adding “I’m hopeful that won’t happen.”
While the FCSS was one of the few social programs spared in this year’s provincial budget cuts it didn’t see any increase. “Although we are delighted for that a zero-per-cent increase is really a cutback in a sense because it doesn’t account for any cost of living increases” says Babins-Wagner.
Katie Black the city’s FCSS manager says her office which will give $7.21 million to local non-profit organizations this year is just preparing for the worst for now. “We know this is going to be a tough situation” she says. “Calgary is a big city that faces complexity as well as volume in terms of the social issues that we work to address here. A frozen budget still means that agencies aren’t able to keep up with rising costs and rising demand.”
Other agencies including the Calgary Distress Centre would be in dire straits if the city made cuts to the FCSS program. “FCSS is our second largest funder — about 27 per cent” says Michelle Wickerson spokesperson with the centre.
The Distress Centre which runs on a $3.3-million budget 46 full-time staff and 160 volunteers has seen a significant spike in the volume and complexity of calls since the recession hit says Wickerson.
“Being a 24-hour service there’s not really an option to deplete hours or anything like that” she says. “Our last choice would be cutting back on services so what we’d be doing is finding ways to make up a shortfall like that. But being our second largest funder that could have significant impacts.”
Meanwhile Terry Rock president and CEO of the Calgary Arts Development Authority says they are preparing for slower growth. “We’ve known we’re in a three-year budget and so we have made sure that we were prepared for any challenges” he says. “We’ve maintained a small surplus that will allow us to deal with this without a problem.”
CADA receives most of its entire $5-million budget from the city which is distributed to 160 non-profit arts organizations says Rock adding he doesn’t think the arts community will be singled out come crunch time. “We think there’s tremendous leverage in what we put into the community and that city council has recognized that this is actually a really really good bang for the buck” he says.
