Winnipeg budget 2023: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

Winnipeg property owners can expect a 3.5-per-cent property-tax hike this year as well as a frontage-levy hike that would raise the equivalent of another 2.6-per-cent tax hike.

This is no secret at city hall. Scott Gillingham promised to raise $42 million in new revenue from Winnipeg properties — $24 million in property taxes and another $18 million from frontage-levy hikes — when he ran for mayor last fall.

Winnipeggers can bet on these hikes being part of the city budget when it comes out on Wednesday.

"The increased revenue from the increases in taxes will be reflected in the budget coming out next week," said North Kildonan Coun. Jeff Browaty, who serves as city council's finance chair.

The 2023 budget will be the first for Gillingham as mayor and the first for Browaty as finance chair. But their spending plan for this year won't be a radical departure from the 2022 budget presented by Gillingham, in his former role as finance chair, as well as former mayor Brian Bowman.

That is partly because of the shorter-than-usual window to put together a budget after an election. In non-election years, budgets are assembled for months before they're presented in November. Following a municipal election, there's less time to focus on city finances before the budget comes out.

Gillingham and Browaty have also said they intend to adhere to the four-year fiscal planning process that started with the 2020 budget. 

They will also be constrained by the city's continuing recovery from the pandemic, which drove up overtime costs during the Omicron wave of COVID-19 early in 2022 and kept paying customers away from Winnipeg Transit.

"The realities of the finances being what they were, we didn't have a lot of room to to bring forward a lot of new services," said Browaty, all but confirming a relatively stand-pat budget will be released on Wednesday.

The city was able to balance its budget last year by nearly draining the city's financial stabilization reserve, more commonly known as the rainy-day fund.

The city has to start replenishing that fund this year, at least by presenting a plan to begin socking away money to cushion the next disaster.

"It's going to be something we're going to have to prioritize and figure out because you never know when the next major storm or pandemic or whatever happens," Browaty said. 

"Hopefully it doesn't, but we do need to be prepared for those possibilities."

More clues as to what will be in the budget can be found by perusing other Gillingham campaign promises.

For starters, the rookie mayor has promised to continue to hold increases to the Winnipeg Police Service's budget at or below the rate of inflation.

While that might sound modest, inflation in Manitoba last year was approximately eight per cent. A police-funding hike equal to inflation works out to another $25 million for the police service.

That alone would exceed the revenue that would be generated from Gillingham's proposed property-tax hike. All to "limit" spending on a service that accounted for 27 per cent of the city's $1.2 billion operating budget last tear.

As well, this mayor has also promised to place police or some form of security on buses. It's possible that funding may fall within Winnipeg Transit's budget, as opposed to that of the police.

Gillingham also promised last fall to spend more money on road repairs. That won't be easy to accomplish, given that the city spent more money than ever fixing roads in 2022.

Winnipeg spent $165 million road renewals last year, which worked out to nearly a third of the $525-million capital budget. Targeted funding from the PC government on Broadway and the Liberal government in Ottawa allowed for the extra spending on roads in 2022.

That money is not coming this year, which means the city will have to spend even more of its own cash to merely equal the road-repair budget from one year ago.

Gillingham also promised during the election to "move forward" on widening Kenaston Boulevard and extending Chief Peguis Trail to the west of Main Street. That language suggests more planning is in the works for those big-ticket infrastructure projects and not all actual construction this year.

There is some good news for the mayor in that Premier Heather Stefanson all but confirmed in January her government will lift the funding freeze it placed on municipal transfers in 2016. That means there will be a little more money to help the city keep pace with inflation this year.

If Winnipeg can preserve existing city services, take baby steps toward big-ticket promises and still start to replenish the rainy-day fund this year, Gillingham and Browaty may very well consider their own budget objectives fulfilled.

It just won't excite Winnipeg voters all that much to see the city keep doing what it's already doing.