Winnipeg council to release budget in February
Mayor Brian Bowman announced this week that his administration is working to release the 2019 operating and capital budgets in February, with consultation starting in December.
Bowman established a budget working group, consisting of himself, Finance Chair Scott Gillingham, the Chairs of all other policy committees, Deputy Mayor Markus Chambers, and Acting Deputy Mayor Vivian Santos.
“Preparing a budget requires an immense amount of work as well as many difficult choices,” said Gillingham. “This will undoubtedly be a challenging budget year, but I am confident that with the efforts of the budget working group and extensive consultations with other members of Council as well as the public, we can bring forward a budget that will reflect the priorities of Winnipeg residents.”
In a news release, the mayor said the budget working group will be tasked with preparing a preliminary budget that is balanced, limits property tax increases to 2.33%, and makes strategic investments necessary to build and position Winnipeg as its population grows toward a million people.
Provincial law requires city council to adopt a budget before March 31 of each fiscal year. It also requires the city to prepare a five-year capital forecast.
Bowman said the reluctance of the provincial government in last week’s throne speech to provide certainty on the continuity of future operating and capital funding to the City of Winnipeg is making it challenging to meet these legislated requirements.
“I’ve always said cities need strong federal and provincial partners to address the infrastructure deficit and build for the future,” he said. “We’ve been able to partner on some key infrastructure projects over the last few years, including a historic program to rebuild our roads, but it’s hard to budget annually as well as five years into the future without certainty on whether funding partnerships are continuing and at what level.”
