Budget passed

December 18th, 2009

December 18, 2009

Final budget protects homelessness and environment programs; restores library funding

Vancouver City Council approved the 2010 operating budget today, which protects key priority areas like homelessness and the environment, as well as ensures that library services are maintained.

Council approved the City’s Corporate Management Team recommendation that exempt staff give up 1% of their 4% salary increase slated for 2010, a move that will save the City $650,000.

“This budget protects our top priorities: homelessness, the environment, public safety, and the arts,” said Mayor Gregor Robertson. “The recommendation from the CMT for exempt staff to scale back their pay increase by 1% provides us with some more flexibility in a challenging budget to reduce the impact on staff, and recognizes the difficult financial situation we are in.”

“After hearing from the public, it is clear to me that the best use of these savings is to help our libraries cope during these challenging times. Libraries serve some of our most vulnerable populations and it is crucial that we support them. I’m very pleased that this budget will make sure we minimize the impact on library hours, and that there will be no early closure of the Riley Park branch.”

Specific adjustments to the 2010 budget included:

    • Increased funding for the retention of the Riley Park Library Branch by $153,000
    • Increased funding to VPL branches serving vulnerable populations by $192,000
    • Increased funding to the VPL Central Library to retain current operating hours by $419,0000
    • Allocation of $500,000 to fund the City’s emergency shelter program on an ongoing basis

The final budget approved includes increases to the Vancouver Public Library, Parks and Recreation, and the Vancouver Police Department. Funding for affordable housing, homelessness, environmental programs and arts and culture are all being maintained or increased.

“We started out with a $60 million shortfall, and staff have done a great job finding savings and efficiencies across every department to close that gap. We’ve been able to bring in a budget that protects key areas like homelessness and the environment, while still keeping property taxes to just 2.26%.

“This budget strikes a careful balance between managing spending and protecting city services, and reflects the priorities of people across the city.”

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FACT OF THE DAY

An article titled Vancouver Politics by Paul Tennant in The Vancouver Book (1976), describes the entry of TEAM onto the civic political scene in 1968. TEAM, wrote Tennant, “sought to be a moderate reform group appealing to persons of all political ideologies.”

On their left was COPE (the Committee of Progressive Electors), also formed in 1968, and on their right was the NPA (the Non-Partisan Association), which had been a power in city politics for nearly four decades, and which “held that the affairs of the city should be run by those with the necessary knowledge and experience, i.e., those with a professional-managerial background, in order to run the city in a business-like way.”

The reformers, on the other hand, “felt that civic decision-making should be open to the public, with leadership coming from a cross-section of the population, and rule going to the working class majority. This group was concerned about land use, they advocated city control, and preferred to structure politics around the neighborhood concept.”

Quote OF THE DAY

“It was very diverse, and we got together by word of mouth. There were professors, business people, labor, lawyers and from all across the city. It was a coalescing of people around the idea we should do something.” – former City Councillor Setty Pendakur on the formation Vancouver’s reform movement and its political manifestation – TEAM – came into being in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

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