Mayor Sim faces criticism over over 0% property tax increase goal

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim is facing criticism amid concerns that a push to save money could lead to job cuts at City Hall.

Coun. Pete Fry says rumours that Sim is looking to make cuts are likely “well-founded.”

“We had a midterm budget update earlier in the year that projected we were probably looking at in the neighbourhood of a seven per cent [property] tax increase this year. And we know that we have various pressures on our budget, including all the new police and fire hires and their wage increases. We have collective agreements with those wage increases for our other employees. We have inflationary pressures, we have pressures coming from Metro Vancouver that all amount to cost increases on our budget,” Fry reasoned.

In a statement to 1130 NewsRadio, Sim confirmed his plan to introduce a motion to “deliver a zero per cent property tax increase this year.”

“Our focus at City Hall will be on delivering a more efficient government while protecting the core services that Vancouverites rely on every day such as libraries, rec centres, sidewalks, police and fire, community grants, and road maintenance,” said Sim.

“We know there is room to be more disciplined in how the City operates and our focus will be on finding those savings without cutting core services.”

Fry says that translates to “pretty significant cuts” in any department that Sim feels the provincial government has downloaded onto Vancouver. He declined to speculate exactly, out of respect for staff.

Reports of cuts are already underway, in what Fry described as newly-appointed City Manager Donny van Dyk working to meet the mayor’s demands.

Coun. Lucy Maloney says she’s interested to know how Sim will justify the cuts.

“That’s a pretty cynical vote-buying exercise in an election year budget,” Maloney said of the zero per cent goal.

If re-elected, she says the governing ABC party would merely make up the difference the next year.

“We saw a 10.7 per cent increase after ABC were elected last time. And we know that they’ve been in power for three years and yet, all of a sudden, we need to have a quite radical move that was advised against by the previous city manager?”

Fry says Sim already “squandered” many opportunities to rein in budgetary concerns in a more measured and thoughtful way, including costly new hires he promised when first elected, and a record-high police overtime budget.

“So these are priorities that the mayor made and is going to have to own, I guess. And it’s unfortunate that it will come at the expense of good, hardworking staff at the city of Vancouver.”