Pre-Olympics workload spurs city hall demands for more staff
Frances Bula
Sun
VANCOUVER – Get ready for an ugly budget year in Vancouver.
City managers are asking for a host of new planners, engineers, emergency personnel and more, to try to cover a work overload and prepare for the Olympics, at a cost of $2.5 million.
Police want 96 additional officers and 22 civilians, just for regular operations. The projected cost of that in 2008 is $3.7 million.
Wage increases for existing city staff, police and fire are estimated to add up to $15 million.
Money that might have gone to the budget from lease earnings from the city-owned Pacific Centre mall is going instead to an Olympic legacy fund.
And homeowners were already facing a stiff tax hike, as the city prepares to transfer more of the tax load from business to residences.
All of that means city council is looking at a six-per-cent tax increase overall, but one that could go up to eight per cent for homeowners.
“It’s going to be very tough,” said Coun. Peter Ladner, the head of the city’s finance committee, as council prepares to wrestle for the next four months over its almost $1-billion budget.
“Next week, we’re going to give staff a tax ceiling and they’re going to have to work within that ceiling.”
Finance director Estelle Lo said the biggest driver of increased costs is the wage settlements for both the city hall union members, who got a new contract after a three-month strike, and the police and fire unions, which are still negotiating.
The next biggest is the police staffing increase, if approved. That’s not a sure thing with a council that last year gave police only half the number of new officers that the department had requested.
And then half a dozen other departments and commissions are asking for extra money, some of it to deal with either the Olympics or the heavy load of pre-Olympics development hitting the city.
Emergency planning, for example, is asking for an extra 21/2 employees, saying “these positions are essential for the city’s role in preparing for the 2010 Olympics and Paralympics.”
The planning department, which has been drowning in a sea of applications as developers race to get projects up just before or just after the Olympics, along with having to commit staff to projects such as the Canada Line and the Olympic Athletes’ Village, is asking for six new staff, the conversion of four temporary positions to permanent and two other temporary positions.
“They have been burning themselves out trying to keep up,” said Lo.
Ladner agreed. “I know in planning applications we are way behind.”
He said the city is going to save some money with an internal review it’s doing right now to try to operate more efficiently.
Opposition Coun. Raymond Louie said he’ll be calling on Mayor Sam Sullivan to keep his promise to hold taxes down.
“This is another significant rise, with more to come possibly because of the transfer of business taxes to residential.”
Louie said residential taxpayers have already seen their taxes go up 15 per cent over the past two years, between regular increases and the ongoing shift of taxes from businesses to residences.
Business groups have been lobbying the city intensively for several years, arguing their tax rate is five times as high as the residential rate, a level that’s driving small businesses under and hurting the business climate in Vancouver.
City council will go through a five-month budget process before arriving at a final tax increase, with several public meetings planned in February and March.
Council is expected to make a final decision April 29.
