Adjusting city’s financial books
Charlottetown’s former finance chairman says city in good shape despite pandemic
The City of Charlottetown is scraping and clawing for every dime it can come up with in an effort to keep finances in the black.
Coun. Mike Duffy, a member of council’s standing committee on finance, recently revealed the city is forecasting a $2.2-million shortfall in parking revenue due to the coronavirus (COVID-19 strain) pandemic’s impact on the downtown.
Duffy was commenting on why the city was proposing to approve a hike in parking fees this month, a plan that has been put on hold.
However, Coun. Terry Bernard, chairman of the finance committee, said the city’s finances aren’t as bleak as originally portrayed and the parking shortfall is not an indication the city expects to finish the fiscal year in a deficit situation, which municipalities are not permitted to do.
At the regular monthly meeting of council on Tuesday, Bernard, in his final meeting as chairman of the committee, said despite a parking revenue shortfall, the city has identified cost savings in various departments and has extra money in its extraordinary expense file to deal with anything unexpected that might come up, due to the pandemic or other factors.
When health restrictions were put in place around mid-March and people were asked to work from home, the city waived all parking fees at the meters and in the parkades. Revenues also dropped in other areas. For example, police, in an effort to abide by physical distancing guidelines, weren’t conducting random checkpoints and issuing tickets.
All parking fees were waived through June.
In an interview with The Guardian following the council meeting, Bernard said that the city re-adjusted its budget in April with the revenue shortfall in mind.
“We adjusted our budget in early April to reflect the expected decrease in revenues from parking meters, parking fees (and) police infractions,’’ Bernard said. “The reason why I’m not using the word deficit is because we have, in the budget, a category called extraordinary expenses … for emergencies when they come up.’’
The finance chairman added that the original shortfall projection also did not include money the city budgets to spend each year but didn’t this year due to the pandemic.
Bernard said travel expenses will be down significantly. In addition, the city didn’t have to pump money into events such as Old Home Week, the P.E.I. Jazz and Blues Festival, the P.E.I. International Shellfish Festival, STIHL Timbersports Canadian Championship, the world under-17 hockey challenge and a variety of other community events because they were cancelled.
Bernard said all departments in the municipality have been told to find cost savings.
At the end of the day, Bernard said the city is actually looking at a $1.4-million shortfall in revenue from parking. However, under the extraordinary expense line item, the city entered the fiscal year with $2.2 million and, through various means has found an additional $1.5 million.
“Anything can change between now and six months’ time,’’ Bernard said. “At the end of the (fiscal) year … you go back to all the departments and see what’s left over. Some may be a little into the red and some might be a little into the black, and that’s when you get your true surplus or deficit (figure).’