REGINA - A chaotic day of deliberations has resulted in no final decision yet on the 2024 operations, capital or utility budgets in Regina.
On Friday afternoon, council voted in favor of motions to table both discussions to Monday at noon. First came the motion to table the operations and capital budget to 12 noon Monday; later, after a brief discussion of the utility budget, that deliberation was also tabled to noon Monday alongside the operations and capital discussion.
The decisions by council to essential postpone their final decisions to Monday followed a confusing, twisting turn of events which saw council first vote to refer the 2024 Regina Operations and Capital budget to Jan. 31 of next year, only to completely walk back that decision by early afternoon.
The events on Friday also highlighted the mounting frustrations of councillors this week over what they see as a confusing and hard-to-follow budget process in 2024.
As had been indicated in the past few days, Councillor Jason Mancinelli went ahead Friday in moving a referral motion. It called for the referral of the operations and capital portion and related amendments back to Administration, with Administration to prepare a new report to be considered at the council meeting on Jan. 31.
Mancinelli explained at council his rationale behind the motion.
"This budget is really really hard to follow," he said. "It's really hard to understand how the decisions have aligned from past input to what they came out today in the capital plan. There's been too many long term projects taken out and too many things inserted without a lot of input ahead of time of where they came from. Without those lineages, you can only imagine what the thoughts were for risk and outcomes and everything else... there's been too much change to follow."
The referral motion, he said, was "to try and weigh some of the timely current asks of council against the budget that has been crafted and worked on for five to ten years in a five year plan." He pointed to the 11th Avenue project, which had been pushed back in the 2024 budget document, as one example. "I understood the language of de-risking and reassessing, but I don't see what the risk management is or the thought -- I understand the costs went up, and now with how it disappeared and new things went in, it makes me think we're spending up monies to pass a budget at a predetermined mill rate, but not really looking for the outcomes of our decision or the long term effects on the City."
Mancinelli's motion was put on the floor and ended up passing by a 6-5 vote. That vote threw council into confusion on what that meant for various city construction projects, and left reporters wondering what the implications were for city spending and tendering.
As council reconvened in the afternoon, it was obvious some members of council shared those same concerns. Councillor Terina Nelson put a motion to the floor to reconsider the decision to refer the operations and capital budget to the Jan. 31 meeting. Council then voted 7-4 against referral, essentially negating the earlier vote to refer the budget to Jan. 31.
Councillor Mancinelli then moved a separate motion to refer the operations and capital budget to Jan. 31, but this time carving out an exception for some $50,000,000 worth of capital projects in advance of that.
That motion then ended up defeated 6-5. That meant the operations and capital budget discussion was back on, with no referral, and so a second round of questioning got under way from councillors.
Some decisions on operating and capital
While the final budget was not settled Friday there were some decisions on some items. During the afternoon session, one item passed that had mill rate implications: an amendment from Councillor Cheryl Stadnichuk to add .03 to the mill rate towards the social development community partner funding program, to advance work related to the cold weather strategy. That brings the overall potential proposed increase up to 2.85 per cent.
Earlier in the day, council also voted to approve inclusion of 1.014 million for the YWCA to support completion of their project, and $1 million for the Globe Theatre to support their project.
That latter approval had implications for some other organizations' budget requests. To fund the $1 million for Globe Theatre, council agreed to take $300,000 out of the operational grant to Economic Development Regina which now stands at $1.695 million. Meanwhile, they also took $700,000 out of operations funding for REAL, reducing the potential additional amount that would cover their entire funding request down from $2.9 million to $2.2 million.
The day's discussion on the operations and capital lasted until mid-afternoon, when Mancinelli made the motion to table that discussion to noon on Monday and to move on to the utility budget. That is what ended up happening.
Motion to lower utility increase
The main focus of the remaining business on Friday afternoon revolved around a motion from Councillor John Findura to reduce the 2024 Utility operating increase from four to two per cent, a move which would impact the base and not consumption.
But councillors expressed a desire to learn more from administration about what the impacts would be and so the utility budget, too, has been tabled to Monday's meeting as well for more discussion.
