Borough services will not be affected by budget cuts

Last week, the Montreal city council announced a $155 million shortfall in their budget. In an effort to make up the deficit, the city is cutting $20 million from the 19 boroughs. Cote-des-Neiges--Notre-Dame-de-Grace has been asked to cut $1.3 million from its budget, said borough official Michel Therrien. “I can assure anyone, services will not be affected by this,” said Therrien. “The money is being saved in other places.”

The boroughs direct services include amenities like garbage collection, road repair and snow removal in the winter.

As well, Therrien said the borough would not be raising taxes to make up any lost budget resources. Instead, the borough is trimming from within to meet Mayor Tremblay’s challenge. “For this year, we are not filling any vacant positions for the borough,” said Therrien. At the moment, said Therrien, there are nine and a half vacant civil service positions available within the borough. “Those positions will not be filled this year,” he said. The positions available range from library assistant to borough office clerk. “We will be asking a bit more of the people we already have,” said Therrien. “but we’ve been operating very well with the positions vacant, so we should be able to continue without filling the positions for now.”

By not filling the positions, Therrien said the borough will be saving not only several annual salaries, but also any benefits that may go along with the positions. “We’ll be saving about $917,000 by not filling the positions,” he said.

The changes the borough made in recent months to its recycling and garbage collection will make up the $383,000 difference, said Therrien “We’ve done well so far with the re-organization of our recycling program,” he said. The borough has also reorganized when it will pick up bulky items, such as old furniture and mattresses, harmonizing it with regular garbage collection days. “We’ve revised the routes and made this change,” said Therrien. “There will be no drop-off in service. For the people, the residents of NDG, it will be business as usual.”

Therrien wanted to assure people that there is no risk the borough might run a deficit to meet its obligations. “There is no risk at all,” he said. “We live with the budget we got right here.”

He also said that the cuts will not affect any projects the borough has planned, including the proposed sports complex at Benny Park, as well as all planned spring road repair. “Our objective for us was to reach this without having to ask the residents to pay,” said Therrien.