It’s day two of city budget deliberations, as the mayor and city councillors debate adjustments and what to cut if they can.
“I have had continued engagement with my council colleagues, city administration, and we got some feed back from edmontonians as well, so I’m going to shift that proposal — it will get us to the same result of about 2 per cent reduction in the tax levy,” said Mayor Amarjeet Sohi.
Late Tuesday afternoon, Edmonton’s mayor and city councillors made a number of amendments to budget adjustments. Mayor Sohi making motions to direct funds from EPCOR dividends and corporate expenditures toward property taxes, as well as other city services. While reducing funding to neighborhood renewal.
“That will deal with some of the other renewal deficit we have in the city in the form of roads, buildings and other facilities,” said Sohi.
It comes as council heard Yellowhead Freeway Conversion is around 10 per cent over budget — councillor Erin Rutherford — whose ward covers much of the recent Yellowhead construction says, it’s still money well spent to improve traffic safety.
“We can never bank on any other order of government coming to the table. I think we know though, that the financial risk of not proceeding with the yellowhead — is way more significant than the 105 million we’d need to take on in debt funding to see that vision through,” said Rutherford.
Council will continue debating budget adjustments this week.