Victoria mayor says new team will help city save money

Victoria councillors plan to spend $300,000 a year on a new “interdisciplinary project team” to drive planning and public engagement on key projects over the next four years.

While it is a new expenditure, Mayor Lisa Helps noted the city also has not replaced four managers who had been let go. “So it’s new [spending] and not new at the same time,” she said.

Hiring the team is a key piece of city council’s first of 13 objectives — to innovate and lead — as outlined in the city’s draft strategic plan. The strategic plan along with the financial plan map out city council objectives for the course of the term.

The new team will help break down silos at city hall, said Helps, adding the value of the approach has been demonstrated through issues, such as public engagement on the new stormwater utility and the parking strategy.

“We basically plucked a few people from each department and said, ‘You guys run this together,’ ” Helps said.

“I would expect that this team ends up saving the city lots of money by doing things differently,” she said.

The progress and the budget will be reviewed annually, Helps said.

Other objectives in the plan include engaging the community, making Victoria more affordable, enhancing public spaces, green spaces and food systems, building financial capacity, which includes creating an integrated real estate arm at city hall or in the economic development office, and facilitating social inclusion and community wellness, including the creation of supervised injection sites.

Helps says the strategic plan “isn’t just a nice wish list.”

“Our plan is actually to accomplish all of those things that are in there in the next four years, including a completed multi-modal transportation network, including potentially a new library, including an economic development office that’s going to generate revenues in new and interesting ways,” Helps said.

The strategic plan along with the draft financial plan are now available for public input.

Council is proposing an overall property tax increase this year of 3.09 per cent on a proposed operating budget of $213 million. Combined with utility fees, the overall increase to homeowners would be 2.91 per cent or $86 on the average home assessed at $504,000, and 2.98 per cent or $216 on the average businesses assessed at $500,000..

There is also an estimated $4.5 million in funding from both new assessments and surplus that has yet to be allocated for 2015. The city would like public input on where they would like to see the funds used.

“This is what I really want to hear from the public on. We’ve got $4.5 million unallocated … and part of that could go to reduce the tax lift,” Helps said.

Interested residents can complete an online survey until March 29. A town hall is planned March 23 in which residents can participate in person, online, through social media or by phone.