Confidential budget briefing paints grim financial picture, Winnipeg councillor warns

Winnipeggers should brace themselves for cuts to city services across all departments, according to one city councillor who shared details of a confidential budget briefing.

The city is in the process of drafting its next four-year budget for 2024 to 2027.

Senior members of the City of Winnipeg civil service, including chief financial officer Catherine Kloepfer and chief administrative officer Michael Jack, gave council members a preliminary update on Friday, Transcona Coun. Russ Wyatt told CBC after the briefing.

"The city is projecting that there will be an inflationary increase given to departments at two per cent, well below the four-plus per cent being used by other levels of government, meaning that there will be cuts across the board internally to city services," Wyatt said.

Council members asked questions about funding specific projects and programs, Wyatt said.

They were told there will be no money for extending Chief Peguis Trail or widening Kenaston Boulevard, two key priorities for Mayor Scott Gillingham, or the Arlington Bridge, which was closed due to structural deterioration in November. 

"You can expect no activity to happen on these projects, unless all of a sudden the province or the federal government come to the table out of the blue," Wyatt said.

An accelerated regional road renewal program, funded by the federal government, has come to an end, so there will be less work done on road repairs, he said.

There is also no new money to transition Winnipeg Transit's bus fleet to zero-emission buses, beyond what council has already committed to, nor to add more buses to the fleet.

"People are standing on buses now. They're going to be standing for much longer and they will be more crowded than ever," Wyatt said.

There was also discussion of closing some wading pools in order to save costs, he said.

Wyatt warned Winnipeggers might not know the cuts are happening, but they will feel the effects.

"The cuts are going to happen quietly and then be seen later, right across departments, who will have no choice but to make these internal cuts because of the fact that the inflation target is being set so low," he said.

The preliminary budget also assumes the city will get $20 million as a result of a lawsuit against Caspian Construction, the contractor behind the Winnipeg police headquarters construction project. That money is supposed to come from assets seized from the company, which the city has yet to do, Wyatt said.

Mayor Scott Gillingham and finance chair Coun. Jeff Browaty (North Kildonan) declined to comment.

Colin Fast, spokesperson for Gillingham, said the mayor, Browaty and council's budget working group "have been trying to work collaboratively to develop the budget. 

"In good faith, they have shared more information at an earlier stage than is typically done, so it's very disappointing a member of council would share details from a working draft of the document," Fast wrote in a statement.

Gillingham has been warning for weeks that this year's budget would be tight. 

Last month, the city released a budget projection that estimated Winnipeg would overspend its budget by $3.1 million, based on financial data from the end of September.

At the same time, the city must replenish a rainy-day fund that was nearly emptied during the pandemic.

At the preliminary budget presentation on Friday, councillors were told the final budget will be presented to the executive policy committee on March 12, with delegations on March 15.

Council will then vote on the budget at its following meeting on March 21.