On Wednesday, a cold and blustery Valentine’s Day, the city’s Parks and Recreation budget got a little bit of love and a special valentine from deputy mayor Cathie Deagle Gammon. But before Cupid could hit Parks and Rec with a budgetary arrow, the Budget Committee meeting, as always, started with public engagement.
The city heard again from Kourtney Dunsby at the Ecology Action Centre who’s having a strong Budget Season™. Her presentation, like many of her previous presentations, highlighted disconnects and issues, pointing out inconsistencies like the municipal plan to buy parkland, with no money to actually buy said parkland. She also highlighted the growing issues of invasive species in the HRM and how much money prevention saves in the long run. The EAC is generally supportive of the HRM’s long-term planning, and wants to see it better supported.
The committee also heard from the Dartmouth United Football Club, who told the city that their fields, especially the grass ones, are in a sorry state of repair. Parks and Rec head Maggie MacDonald would answer this type of question a lot during the meeting, because it is not just the state of our fields. Neighbourhood pathways trails are where this is most noticeable. Those pathways and trails need to be constantly cleared of garbage and, depending on the season, invasive species or snow. On top of that, one of the ways we have subsidized suburban development is by downloading the cost of critical municipal infrastructure, like trails and pathways, to volunteer community groups. A lot of those volunteer groups have no money or members (because young people also have no money and therefore too many jobs, and the old volunteers are dying). So Parks has been required to pick up a lot of slack that they don’t have the staff for. The staff they do have prioritized garbage collection over seasonal maintenance ;ast year. One of their budget requests this year was to staff up and start addressing that service gap. And that is one of the many reasons Parks is funded above historic levels this year.
There are some other benefits to spending more money. Since the city passed a living-wage policy, newer municipal lawnmowing contracts were given out under the new policy which has been rolling out slowly since 2020 as contracts get renewed and replaced. This has led to an increase in spending, but Parks staff noticed that the contractors who were required to pay a living wage to their staff also had far fewer complaints about their service, which led to far fewer calls for service. As the living-wage policy continues to take effect and affects future municipal budgets, we’ll start to get some good data on whether or not paying higher wages leads to lower overall municipal costs with the decrease in calls for service.
Have you ever wondered how capital projects move into a business unit’s operating budgets? Well wonder no longer! This year Parks and Rec asked for extra money to operate the newly opened pool on the Halifax Common. Councillor Patty Cuttlle asked why this needed to come to council, since the city built it, so obviously we would staff it, right? The answer is yes we should, but administratively this needs to be duly approved by council, because we don’t have to, technically speaking, so this motion is required to cross some t’s and dot some i’s.
All of the above would require more people, and councillor Tony Mancini wanted to give his colleagues an idea of what cuts to Parks would look like this year and asked for a briefing note for a later budget meeting to see what cutting 50% of the proposed new hires would look like. Councillor Sam Austin led the charge against this motion, even as a thought experiment, saying “let’s not hack our poorest department.” He was joined by councillor Kathryne Morse in dissent (while councillors Waye Mason, Paul Russell and Tim Outhit were absent). This passed, but it’s worth pointing out that Mancini’s motion only included new staff positions.
The plan to spend $3 million on bringing a Sailing Grand Prix race to Halifax this summer is moving forward, because of the economic benefits associated with tourism. Unless Grand Prix attendees buy property or get parking tickets, it is unlikely the HRM will see a direct financial benefit to this spending.
Austin wanted to know if and/or when the HRM was going to have a standardized municipal rec centre membership. For those who may be unaware, a lot of municipal rec centres are run by local community groups and supported in various ways by the municipal government. The city wants to standardize HRM’s rec facilities, and plans to in the coming years, but this requires technology. More information to come on this Soon™, which right now is supposed to be May, maybe June. This rec facility organizational structure has led to some bizarre social outcomes in the HRM, which parents refer to as Swimming Lesson Hunger Games, and its seasonal sibling, the Summer Camp Hunger Games.
Because most HRM rec facilities are run by different groups there are different schedules and deadlines throughout the HRM. Membership at certain facilities grants parents the ability to sign up for swimming lessons and summer camps at that specific facility before lessons and camps are open to the HRM as a whole. This is also working to create non-equitable outcomes in HRM’s rec programming.
For example, the city currently means tests its Affordable Access Program, meaning if you are poor enough to qualify for the affordable rate, the city makes you do paperwork to prove it. Mancini has previously told his peers that in North Dartmouth the paperwork is acting as a barrier to access, as people just go without rec programming instead of trying to find time to do paperwork. On top of that, because different rec centres are run by different groups, exactly how poor you need to be to qualify for the program can change location to location. Removing or easing the HRM’s administrative penalty on the poor should be part of the plan coming back in May, maybe June.
