COVID continues to clip city revenue streams

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This article was published 04/03/2022 (1367 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

COVID-19 and Mother Nature have together blasted an estimated $220-million hole in the City of Winnipeg’s recent revenues.

As well, a new civic report — to be presented at next week’s council finance committee meeting — is projecting the pandemic is leaving the city with a $41.3-million shortfall in its 2022 budget.

The ongoing public health crisis has resulted in fewer Winnipeg Transit passengers, open parking spots in civic parkades, and increased overtime hours for firefighters and paramedics.

As well, with snowfall this winter in near-record amounts, the almost continuous plowing has carried away dollars, along with the snow.

Finance committee chairman Coun. Scott Gillingham said the revenue drop has been a total of $220.7 million since the pandemic began in 2020. The city saw revenues drop by $92 million in 2020, $73 million in 2021, and forecasts a $55-million hit this year.

“It is a significant impact,” Gillingham said Friday.

“And $136 million of that is in Transit; we’ve lost transit users. With university and college campuses closed to on-campus learning, students haven’t been riding the bus to campus.”

Gillingham said the city has reduced the transit system by six per cent to save money, but it hasn’t wanted to go down any further.

“We still want people to have confidence being on Transit. So people can social distance. People still need to use Transit to get to work, to get to appointments and to get to other places,” he said.

“We want to encourage people to get back on the bus.”

Gillingham said Winnipeg is hoping for some transit relief from the federal and provincial governments, but hasn’t heard a final answer. The city got $74 million in 2020.

Meantime, parking revenue has been hit because so many workers have been working out of their residences instead of coming to downtown offices.

Sickness related to COVID-19 and exposure to the novel coronavirus has also hit the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service hard. The city has had to pay $2.3 million in overtime.

“Staff had to self-isolate if they contracted COVID or were in close contact with people who had it,” Gillingham said. “So then, people would be called to fill in and that would create overtime.”

To top it off, this year’s dump of snow is adding up in clearing costs.

The month of January logged 43.2 centimetres of snow, forcing the city to go over its allotted clearing budget for that month by about $7.9 million. It had already exceeded last year’s snow clearing budget by $11.2 million.

“January was a very snowy month,” Gillingham said. “In January, it cost us $14.2 million in snow clearing.”

February’s snow clearing costs were still being processed. In the first two weeks, the city was hit with another 22 cm of snow — and more has fallen since.

However, Gillingham said property owners won’t be paying for any of the costs through increased property taxes.

“We put the multi-year, four-year budget in place in 2020, with 2.3 per cent increases per year — 2022 is still 2.3 per cent,” he said.

“We’re very aware the cost of living for Winnipeg is going up. Groceries are going up. Gasoline prices are jumping. We are aware now is not the year to raise property taxes.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca