Councillor Ryan Doyle speaking at the Oct. 7, 2024 meeting. (Photo courtesy of YourTV Chatham-Kent YouTube Channel)
Chatham

CK council approves motion looking into possible budget cuts

Budget season is coming early for the Municipality of Chatham-Kent.

CK council met on Monday and approved a motion from Councillor Ryan Doyle to have administration look into the possibility of cutting 7.5 per cent from the individual budgets of seven departments.

The affected departments include the CAO's office, corporate services, development services, finance, fire and emergency services, health and human services, and infrastructure and engineering services.

Recommendations will be brought back to council during next month's budget meetings.

"Hopefully some suggestions from them will give us some better ideas on how to get our tax increase down," said Doyle.

He brought forward the motion due to concerns the municipality was looking at a roughly 9 per cent tax increase for 2025. During Monday's meeting, Mayor Darrin Canniff explained that number is now closer to 6.9 per cent.

"At the end of the day, if we get this down another 3 to 4 per cent that would be awesome," added Doyle.

One person in support of the cuts is Matt Bailey. He took the time to speak to council about his concerns with taxes potentially increasing again.

"Everything has become expensive. The only thing that hasn't gone up is wages," he said.

Matt Bailey speaking to CK council on Oct. 7, 2024. (Photo courtesy of YourTV Chatham-Kent YouTube Channel)

Bailey works at the Chatham Hope Haven and explained he gets paid minimum wage. He added he's content there since he gets to help people in need, however, if taxes keep increasing he'll be forced to look for a new job and places like the homeless shelter will struggle to find workers.

Not everyone is in favour of the possible cuts, though. Nick Bond also took time to speak to council, sharing his concerns that services would be cut and lead to bigger expenses down the road.

CK council members were split on the motion, too. Canniff along with Councillors Marjorie Crew, Aaron Hall, and Melissa Harrigan voted against it.

Harrigan mentioned it would be better to talk about possible cuts during actual budget talks when council plans on going through each expense line by line.

Despite some opposition, a round of applause came from those in attendance when Doyle's motion was officially approved.

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