When the City of Vancouver released its proposed $610.8 million budget for 2011 on Thursday, the administrative report trumpeted funding increases.
The increases included:
Critics, however, say the city is playing with numbers and the increases in funding for those services is far below what is required because the increases do not take into account rising costs for staff salary increases.
“There are inflationary increases in every department,” said Coun. Suzanne Anton. “That’s because there are a lot of built-in increases for wages, the extra cost for fuel.”
The city’s proposed budget does not take those increases into effect, she said.
Were those increases to be taken into account, the effect on Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services would be at least $500,000 less money next year than this year, Anton said.
Vancouver Fire Fighters’ Union Local 18 president Gord Ditchburn told Business in Vancouver September 7 that the city asked his union to prepare proposals for how the Vancouver Fire Department could operate with up to $4 million in cuts to its $89.6 million budget.
He suggested to BIV that one way to shave that amount of money would be to close the Point Grey fire hall. (See “Budget cuts threaten Point Grey fire hall” – BIV Business Today, September 8, 2010.)