Saint John councillors during their regular meeting on June 3, 2019. (Brad Perry/CHSJ News)
As the city prepares to cut services, one Saint John councillor is suggesting council looks at cutting back too.
Gary Sullivan is bringing three motions to Monday’s council meeting, including shrinking the number of councillors from 10 to eight, which he says could bring savings of $60,000.
He says its something that’s never been looked at before.
“The last change to council was in 2008. The city of Saint John changed from having 10 at large councillors to the system we have now. In my memory, I think council has always had 10 members,” he said.
According to Elections NB, the new by-law must be developed, posted for 10 days, approved and filed with Elections NB no later than six months before the next election, which is in May. That means all the work would have to be done by November 11th, less than a month away.
Sullivan says he still thinks this is doable.
“Because the election is so soon we need to make a decision quite quickly,” he said.
With the next municipal elections four years away, Sullivan says the change has to happen now, or the city will lose out on savings it desperately needs to make it through the 2021/2022 budgets.
Sullivan also wants to see the wage escalation policy applied to the Mayor’s and councillor’s salaries.
“Council this term voted to increase our salaries, and part of the budget moving forward, if our salaries are going to increase one of the things maybe we need to do is reduce the number of councillors,” he said.
He also wants to reduce the budgets of the Mayor’s Office and Council by 30 per cent, which he says could result in savings of $75,000.
“We’re looking at cutting back on plowing sidewalks for example, or reducing funding of neighbourhood associations. I don’t think it makes sense that councillors are still going to $120 a plate dinners on the taxpayers dime,” he said.
Sullivan says although the savings aren’t massive, in the face of a structural deficit every dollar counts.
“We really need to be looking everywhere,” he said.
“It’s important that if we are asking citizens to make changes, if we’re asking our own staff to make changes, I don’t think its okay for common council to just keep going along the way we’ve been going. We need to make changes too.”
