$36M Budget Hole Goes To Audit Committee: WHOPPER WATCH
“Anticipated funding of $36M from the federal and provincial governments for the Draft 2025 budget, as part of the Fairness for Ottawa Campaign in consideration of the $120 million 2025 funding deficit.”
Part of draft operating and capital budget submission to Monday audit committee meeting
That $36 million that Mayor Mark Sutcliffe has been tub-thumping for some time is far, far from guaranteed.
It’s odd that city chief financial officer Cyril Rogers would submit that to audit committee when the feedback from the federal government has been “no” and the provincial government has been resounding silence.
How can you build a budget around money you don’t have and are unlikely to have?
What will audit committee do with such a fairy tale? Probably nothing.
We’ll see on Monday.
Ken Gray
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The only positive feature of this year’s budget process is that staff are now highlighting to council the gaping holes in the budget that were previously tagged as ‘transfer from reserves’. Perhaps because the reserves have been drained of every last fictional penny during the last more than a decade of budget ‘leger du main’.
As you say Ken, we will have to wait until Monday to see if the committee comprised of councillors tasked with the oversight of staff pick up on what should be interpreted as a not so subtle hint that the budget is not balanced.
Now would be a good time to cancel the “Tunnel To Nowhere” ($24M) under Terry Fox Road between the Crazy Horse and Dymon Storage. At least it has cycle lanes for the bikers to get to Dymon Storage. Initiated in 1995 under the Mayor of Kanata, Marianne Wilkinson, as part of the Centrum approval, it regained life somehow and the city invented a way OC transpo could possible use the tunnel if it wanted, as the rationale for the project. That $24M could go a long way in resolving that budget shortfall
But, Ron, won’t the budget just balance itself? On a more serious note, the city needs to learn when to abandon projects. Better to drop out of a project that has no chance of coming to fruition after $10M has been spent than to keep pouring money into that same project and being left with a boondoggle that doesn’t provide any value $200M later. We often talk about “the city’s biggest problem”. Add to the list not knowing when to say “whoa”. This is the first step towards not getting involved in the first place and balancing a budget that will NOT balance itself.