Preliminary city budget proposes spending $185 million in 2021

Weighing in at 388 pages, the city's 2021 preliminary budget will smack down on the desks of city councillors on Monday.

And desks won't be the only thing getting thumped if the $185 million budget gets approved without changes.

Including levy boards and local boards over which the city has no fiscal control, the draft budget would wallop ratepayers with a 5.75 per cent levy increase – a magnitude of hike that hasn't been seen in Sault Ste. Marie since the 2003-2006 City Council headed by the late Mayor John Rowswell.

But the final tax increase almost certainly won't be that much.

Councillors typically find ways of whittling the increase down to a more manageable size and there's still time to do that.

"In practise, there will be changes," Malcolm White, the city's chief administrative officer, said Friday.

"During the council budget meeting, there's always some adjustments. Sometimes things are added in. Sometimes things are taken away," White said.

"That's council doing its job."

After the preliminary budget is presented on Monday night, council's next kick at the cat will be at a capital and operating budget deliberation session on Dec. 7, with a second session scheduled for the following day if necessary.

The final tax rates will be set in March and April of 2021.

Also on Dec. 7, councillors will decide the fate of the twin-pad arena proposed to replace the seriously deteriorating McMeeken Centre.

But whether or not the McMeeken replacement is approved isn't expected to affect the tax levy.

"There is long-term debt coming off the books," White said.

"For that project specifically it can be handled – assuming it comes in at the cost we're predicting – within the existing levy."

COVID-19 is expected to cost the City of Sault Ste. Marie close to $2 million, but councillors are expected to pay for that using a tax stabilization reserve instead of adding it to the levy.

That will be the first time the tax stabilization fund has been used and it will cut the levy impact to 4.13 per cent.

City officials are quick to point out that only 2.12 per cent of the levy impact is directly attributable to city spending.

After the preliminary budget is presented on Monday, City Council will hear pitches from Sault Ste. Marie Police Service and Sault Ste. Marie Public Library, both agencies angling for more than the maximum one per cent inflationary increase recommended by the city.

The police and library boards say they need extra money to cover increases in salaries and benefits.

The city's proposed 2021 road construction program includes $15.6 million in work on:

• Third Line
• Trunk/Black Road connecting link
• Mark Street
• aqueducts and bridges
• MacDonald Avenue stormwater management
• Angelina Avenue
• 2022 engineering work
• road resurfacing

Priority capital projects proposed for 2021 include:

• $4.9 million for new buses, bus shelters moving the downtown transit terminal
• $1 million for additional boardwalk repairs
• $450,000 to replace a fire rescue truck
• $385,000 for redesigning the lobby of the Ronald A. Irwin Civic Centre for COVID compliance
• $118,000 for new LED lighting at the John Rhodes Community Centre

City officials are hoping that most of the fiscal demands of the coronavirus pandemic will be over by Canada Day, 2021.

"We are hoping by July 1 of next year that we are post-pandemic and back to normal operations," White told reporters on Friday. "Or whatever the new normal will be for post-COVID."

Monday's City Council meeting will be livestreamed on SooToday starting at 4:30 p.m.