Windsor city council approves 2018 budget

After two days of deliberations a new capital plan was approved by Windsor city council Tuesday, which will see $664 million go to various projects over the next six years.

The more than $22 million 2018 enhanced capital budget was approved without modifications. In previous years $10 million had been approved.

"It's not sustainable in terms of being able to do that each and every year but every year there's $10 million unallocated in our regular capital budget," said Mayor Drew Dilkens. "This year we had a benefit because of a decision city council made last night transferring $1 million from the operating budget to the capital budget. That opened up $6 million more over the six-year capital plan."

• Windsor council trims operating budget tax increase to 0.9%
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Dilkens said council also pushed back on projects that were on the capital budget for the Windsor International Airport.

"Sitting on $6 million dollars in cash they're in a position to fund their own projects because of the success and operation at that particular location," Dilkens explained.

Where it will go

Notably, the enhanced capital budget also saw 32 per cent allotted to roads and 31 per cent for sewers. Council will be using most of the money this year for pothole and concrete level repairs.

Also approved was $250,000 for alley funding, $500,000 reserved for basement flooding mitigation in part of the sewer plan and $1 million for improvements to Peche Island and boat access.

"I'm happy about all the road investments and all the park investments and I'm happy about Peche island and being able to move forward with that project," said Dilkens.

WIFF wins

 Another large investment was $250,000 dollars which will go to funding the Windsor International Film Festival.

"This is really good for the community to see this investment in WIFF. We're able to put this directly toward some capital investments," said Vincent Georgie, executive director of WIFF. "Mainly the purchase of our digital projector, purchase of sound equipment really key materials that we need for the festival."

The festival currently rents it's equipment each year, and Georgie believes this investment will make WIFF more sustainable.

"Going from renting all of our equipment annually to actually owning it now reduces those cost and allows us to reallocate budget elsewhere," he said.

The organization will be receiving the money in 2020. For that year, they plan on extending the duration of the festival to 10 days.

Parks and recreation

There's also a $2.2 million investment on parks and recreation enhancements, which will see 28 parks replaced or redeveloped. 

At the meeting, Coun. Bill Marra asked to move over $500,000 of road work funds in his ward for a new community centre. Council turned down that request.

"I'm disappointed for the community. The fact that they were texting me and watching — they're pretty bummed out. They put a lot of work into it," said Marra.

Yesterday the operating budget was approved. Heading into budget deliberation council faced a 2.6 per cent tax increase which was reduced to 0.9 per cent after a series of cutbacks.