Some councillors are saying they have no plans yet to reduce service levels in the city, as they start to eye next year’s operating budget.
The city is preparing next year's operating budget, and administration presented an updated service level inventory to council during a March 14 committee meeting, giving council an early opportunity to ponder future changes.
When asked about future changes to service levels offered by the city, St. Albert Coun. Sheena Hughes said at the moment she doesn't have any plans to bring forward motions that would alter them.
“At this point I don't see any areas that residents have brought forward that they want to have dramatic changes, but I'm definitely open to listening to them if they do.”
Likewise, Coun. Ken MacKay also said he doesn't plan to put forward any changes to city service levels.
“One of the things we have to make sure of is that we're not down in operations,” MacKay said. “We stay at a governance level and so by staying at a governance level we can certainly ask questions but ... we don't know what the long term impacts will be.”
“We would really need to have some background before we determined some of changes.”
Coun. Mike Killick also said he thinks any change made to city service levels needs to be carefully considered, and explained that the motion to mow public grass more frequently arose after receiving lots of negative public feedback.
“We had a lot of resident feedback saying, 'Hey, how come the grass isn't being cut as regularly as it once was,'” Killick said.
“A small change to service level can actually have a big impact to what residents see and are used too so ... each (change) has to be looked at very carefully to understand what the consequences are.”
Administration uses the service level inventory as a starting point to develop the annual city budget, as roughly 82 per cent of municipal operating spending each year is devoted to services such as the Arden Theatre, parks, Servus Place, business supports, and much more.
During the March 14 standing committee of the whole meeting, council was given a quick reminder of service level changes that came into effect as of Jan. 1, 2023, such as grass cutting in parks and boulevards now being done on a 10 day cycle rather than a 12 day cycle.
The grass cutting frequency change added $39,000 to the 2023 budget.
Multiple councillors The Gazette spoke to said the annual updated service level inventory presentation is simply a starting point for council to begin considering any service levels amendments, as any changes would need to be passed by council motion.
“It happens every year to let us know exactly what we're doing for service levels ... that way, in the event that you want to improve them or decrease some you know what the baseline is,” Hughes said.
“It's just about discussing where we're at and ... (if) we have questions, because really unless you bring it forward, often things about changing (service levels) don't even hit the radar of discussion,” she said.
The committee heard that administration is planning to start drafting the 2024 city budget on May 3, and the draft is expected to be released to the public in October.
