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Old 07-24-2019, 01:19 AM   #1
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Default Details of $60 million municipal budget cuts announced

https://pub-calgary.escribemeetings....cumentId=99777

PDF of everything being cut ^

115 city jobs lost
80,000 fewer hours of transit
$7 million cut to the police

passed tonight in a pretty resounding vote

https://twitter.com/user/status/1153895086419132417

Meghan Potkins' article here:

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local...-input-on-cuts

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Detailed effects of the cuts were finally revealed late Tuesday after council had spent hours debating the proposal behind closed doors.

Around 80,000 hours of transit service will be cut, resulting in less frequent bus and CTrain service on weekends and weekdays, according to the city’s cut-package report. The city clarified that Calgary Transit Access service levels will not be impacted by the cuts.

Council has also elected to cut staffing to four Calgary fire department medical response vehicles and one rescue unit. The result, Nenshi says, is that regular fire trucks will be forced to respond to more medical calls.

Calgary police will officially shutter the popular auxiliary cadet program as part of an effort to satisfy a $7 million cut in funding in 2019.

The city initially proposed shutting down two “flatwater” city pools as part of the budget reductions — but council elected to delay the $800,000-cut for the rest of the year to explore alternatives.

There will be a cut to an affordable housing incentive program for developers and the city will trim $482,000 from the budget of the municipal Indigenous Relations Office.

Council members approved the cut package by a 13-1 vote. Only Coun. Druh Farrell was opposed. Coun. Ray Jones was absent.
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Old 07-24-2019, 01:49 AM   #2
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What’s the auxiliary cadet program? That sounds like it could be superfluous.
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Old 07-24-2019, 01:50 AM   #3
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What’s the auxiliary cadet program? That sounds like it could be superfluous.
https://www.calgary.ca/cps/Pages/You...t-Program.aspx
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Old 07-24-2019, 07:07 AM   #4
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It boggles my mind that we needed to find $60MM in savings by cutting services to Calgarians, but have $275MM to buy the Flames a new arena, the same size as the old one.
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Old 07-24-2019, 07:18 AM   #5
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It boggles my mind that we needed to find $60MM in savings by cutting services to Calgarians, but have $275MM to buy the Flames a new arena, the same size as the old one.
different pots of money. one has nothing to do with the other except for optics.

boggles my mind that of all the cuts the could make, they'd cut 80,000 hours of transit.
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Old 07-24-2019, 07:26 AM   #6
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I don't understand the "different pots of money" line. There is only one taxpayer. Why does it matter how the city chooses to allocate it?
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Old 07-24-2019, 07:27 AM   #7
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Old 07-24-2019, 07:28 AM   #8
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Originally Posted by GordonBlue View Post
different pots of money. one has nothing to do with the other except for optics.

boggles my mind that of all the cuts the could make, they'd cut 80,000 hours of transit.
Different pockets maybe, same pants though.
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Old 07-24-2019, 07:28 AM   #9
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Originally Posted by GordonBlue View Post
different pots of money. one has nothing to do with the other except for optics.

boggles my mind that of all the cuts the could make, they'd cut 80,000 hours of transit.
To be fair, an hour of transit costs an awful lot of money when you add all the personnel and expenseses. In my limited and inner-city centric experience, I’ve seen an awful lot of empty buses running around. But I might be a bit bitter still about the purple line.
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Old 07-24-2019, 07:32 AM   #10
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I don't understand the "different pots of money" line. There is only one taxpayer. Why does it matter how the city chooses to allocate it?
Because operational expenses are directly tied to property taxes, whereas the capital budget can come from the provincial and Canadian governments.

It’d be like asking why, if your company covers your flights to a conference, they can’t just pay for a few weeks of groceries instead. Primarily because it’s not just your money to use on whatever you feel like, and if you don’t use it on a flight, you don’t use it.

It’s not simply a bunch of money for whatever the city wants to spend it on. Property taxes on businesses went up, businesses complain, so the city is trying to help them out by losing the tax burden, causing them to make cuts.
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Old 07-24-2019, 07:35 AM   #11
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capital budget can come from the provincial and Canadian governments.
But is it not also funded by property taxes? So you'd still be reducing dollars available for other projects and operations by choosing to allocate a bunch to an arena, correct?
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Old 07-24-2019, 07:46 AM   #12
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I don't think that's correct... as it was explained to me, the bulk of the money (possibly all of it?) going towards the arena can only be used for capital projects. I'm prepared to stand corrected though.
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Old 07-24-2019, 07:52 AM   #13
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I don't think that's correct... as it was explained to me, the bulk of the money (possibly all of it?) going towards the arena can only be used for capital projects. I'm prepared to stand corrected though.
Even if this is true, what’s the reasoning?

Sounds strange in a modern democracy. We have money in one pot, but that pot is only for building things and not running them. Oh and we are out of money in the running things pot. Doesn’t it makes sense to move funds? Is that illegal? If so, why?
What happens if the shortfall on the operating side is astronomical for whatever reason, yet you have access to a lot of capital projects money.
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Old 07-24-2019, 07:54 AM   #14
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different pots of money. one has nothing to do with the other except for optics.

boggles my mind that of all the cuts the could make, they'd cut 80,000 hours of transit.
Keep in mind that overall Transit runs about 2.5 million hours of service. 80,000 hours is about 3% - while it will certainly affect some people, it likely just means they wait a little longer for their bus or train, not that it's removed.
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Old 07-24-2019, 07:56 AM   #15
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Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague View Post
I don't think that's correct... as it was explained to me, the bulk of the money (possibly all of it?) going towards the arena can only be used for capital projects. I'm prepared to stand corrected though.
Right, but if the capital budget pot runs out, and they need to build, say, an interchange, could they not take money from the other pot for that capital project? And I assume at some point there is a balance where they allocate money to that capital budget? It sounds like if capital money comes form other forms of government, it can ONLY be spent on capital projects, whereas property tax dollars can be allocated to anything. Obviously funding ftom other levels of government would need to be added to with tax dollars, so there must be some usage there. Which gets back to there only being one tax payer.
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Old 07-24-2019, 07:59 AM   #16
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Even if this is true, what’s the reasoning?
The reasoning is to ensure that municipalities don't blow their brains out on operating expenses and ignore (or inadequately fund) long-term infrastructure, because (for example) they're focused on short-term re-election prospects. Human beings suck at long term planning and if they're not forced to, they won't do it. And then you've got a bigger problem when those chickens come home to roost. Plus, if the city can't look to other orders of government to fund its operating expenses, they're likely to be a bit more realistic about what they can afford. In theory, anyway.

I don't know if I'm in favour of using a capital budget on an arena, but I'm damn glad there is a capital budget... for one thing, the state of the roads around my place is a disaster.
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Old 07-24-2019, 07:59 AM   #17
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Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague View Post
I don't think that's correct... as it was explained to me, the bulk of the money (possibly all of it?) going towards the arena can only be used for capital projects. I'm prepared to stand corrected though.
Unless they’re capital GRANTS I don’t see how that could be correct. They’re taking money from other programs and services to pay for an arena. It’s all one pot.
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Old 07-24-2019, 08:07 AM   #18
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https://www.thestar.com/calgary/2019...-services.html
Quote:
As city council cuts $60 million from its budget, a downtown community association wants the cuts to come from new projects instead of services such as policing or transit.

Peter Oliver, president of the Beltline Neighbourhoods Association (BNA), said he feels this year’s budget cuts are connected to council’s decision last year to approve the development of 14 new communities on the outskirts of Calgary, a move that saw property taxes increase.
Just a reminder who voted against these new expensive property tax increasing communities last year
-Farrell, Duh
-Nenshi, Naheed

Just a reminder who voted for these new expensive property tax increasing communities last year, while also rallying against the Olympic bid because he cares for tax payers so much
-Farkas, Jeromy
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Old 07-24-2019, 08:51 AM   #19
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I am sure there are a few happy folks around here that 115 people are being layed off from their cushy, do-nothing, high-earning pension government positions.
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Old 07-24-2019, 09:11 AM   #20
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I think it's important to know, before classifying $60MM as "huge", the city operating budget for 2019 is ~$4B
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