Kingston, Ont., is taking a hard look at its financial future, as city leaders grapple with how to close potential budget gaps in the years ahead. From finding cost savings to exploring new ways to bring in revenue, council is now asking staff to dig into options.

On Tuesday night, city council unanimously voted to have staff explore a range of options to help address those long-term budget strains. Those include looking at new revenue tools and cost recovery measures along with examining the potential for municipal services corporations in areas like water, wastewater, and other non-core services.

“Anything that we presented last night I would say is a picture across all Ontario municipalities,” said city treasurer Desiree Kennedy. “We are not unique in Kingston. These are challenges that are right across the board, across the province.”

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Kennedy warned that if not handled, the growing financial pressures will begin to rear their head over the next decade and beyond.

“It’s still business as usual at the city today, but it’s really about looking at our fiscal outlook over the next 10-15 years, and what that would potentially look like and as we presented last night, a lot of challenges that we see coming.”

Mayor Bryan Paterson says it’s about making sure city resources are being used as effectively as possible.

“We’re also looking at our existing assets, our buildings, our properties,” Paterson said. “Do we need them all? Are they being used effectively? Are there some ways that we may want to look at either selling off a building or property, or maybe repurposing it to something that better meets the needs of the city?”

Paterson says municipalities are increasingly taking on responsibilities in areas like health care and social supports, services that were once primarily funded by the province.

“There’s an increasing amount of our city budget that goes to health care, whether it’s family physician recruitment, whether it’s investing in supports to deal with the ongoing mental health and addiction crisis,” Paterson said. “So the cost pressures that we’re seeing as municipalities are only going up.”

Despite those challenges, the mayor says the city will continue to try to limit the impact on taxpayers.

“Because we know that people are stretched. So the commitment I’ve had as mayor is that Kingston’s property tax increase should be among the lowest of other large cities in Ontario and that’s a commitment that we’ve held to over the last couple of years, and I think it’s important that that continues.”

City staff are expected to report back with recommendations on these options within the next six months.

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