Halifax overspending, report warns

A staff report warns Halifax Regional Council that the city's expenditures outpace revenues by $13.9 million.

Councillors will get the report Tuesday, and Mayor Peter Kelly says they'll be looking closely at consulting fees.

Last fiscal year the municipality spent about $700,000 on consultants. 

So far this year — just halfway through the budget year — the city has spent more than $440,000.

"Maybe we're at a point where we have so much demand for consultants that we can look at bringing in a staff person cheaper than what we're having to pay a consultant," said Mayor Peter Kelly. "It's this kind of analysis, this kind of discussion [we'll be having], to determine what we can do and how we can do it better."

A new city library, a new four-pad arena and the Canada Games facilities are among the city's current capital expenditures. A possible new downtown convention centre would add to the list of expenses.

"The service levels that we give, we're going to have to find greater cost efficiencies," Kelly said. "We're just going to have to find a better way of doing what we do."

In order to keep expenses down, the city may have to cut jobs and reduce services, he said.

"For us, we need to look at our tax structure and to keep it where it is and only use a potential tax increase as a last resort," Kelly said, acknowledging that the city has a lot of hard work ahead and tough decisions will have to be made.