London councillors endorse additional deficit-slashing measures, push for community recovery plan

London city councillors have unanimously endorsed staff recommendations to help slash the projected deficit while also supporting measures to redirect some funds towards homelessness initiatives and to begin development of a long-term recovery plan.

The municipality is working to shrink a massive hole resulting from the novel coronavirus pandemic, with all measures still requiring final approval at the next full council meeting.

In late April, city staff estimated that the pandemic could deal a $33-million financial hit to the city by the end of August. That number is now down to $22-million thanks to measures taken — including staffing impacts and re-allocating 2019 surplus funds  — and city staff have since suggested further measures to shrink the shortfall even further to around $7.4-million.

Budget chair and councillor Josh Morgan spoke to the staff recommendations, noting that even with service reductions and the deferral of capital projects and some items from additional investments in the budget “we’re going to have a significant deficit.”

“That’s only through the end of August, if we take all of these measures. So we’ve got to take these measures to get it down to that and we’re still going to have a problem,” Morgan said at Tuesday’s Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee meeting.

“I think the municipality has to do its part on this — we have to try to find savings at the same time as we’re asking provincial and federal governments for assistance. That assistance is really important and I think our lobby efforts are enhanced when we can demonstrate that we’ve taken every possible action that we could take to try to bring this down internally within reason.”

Councillors also endorsed a series of motions resulting from the London Police Services Board’s suggestion to defer three new police positions for 2020 and instead re-allocate already-approved funding for those positions to homeless prevention housing allowances.

Previously, it was recommended that police defer five of 10 planned new hires, but the police board has since suggested that three additional positions could be also deferred.

“Essentially, it would provide $516,000 this year for homeless prevention housing allowances and police can go without three additional positions beyond what the treasurer has already recommended,” said councillor and deputy mayor Jesse Helmer, who added that those funds could impact more than 170 households.

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Councillors also endorsed a joint motion from Mayor Ed Holder and deputy mayor Helmer to have city staff develop a plan to “bring together community partners in the development of a community recovery plan in response to the COVID-19 crisis.”

“We need a much more sustainable, long-term approach to recovery,” Helmer explained.

“That is what we are essentially starting with this motion here is to have civic administration come back with some recommendations about how that could be done to kind of transition the Mayor’s Economic and Social Impact and Recovery Task Forces to a more broad community recovery plan. It’s very clear at this point in the pandemic that this is a kind of long-haul thing and it’s going to require a really substantial amount of effort to get a strong recovery.”

Helmer says he anticipates city staff would be able to get back to councillors in mid-July.