The City of Windsor is holding off on planned January budget deliberations amid concerns the new Doug Ford government may be downloading costs onto municipalities.
“We're hearing different things but there's enough conversation there that at least administratively here has had us say, 'let's just wait on our budget’,” says mayor Drew Dilkens.
The mayor tells CTV Windsor going forward with deliberations as planned in January could leave the city in a position without enough money allocated in the 2019 budget.
Dilkens says it's not yet clear what programs may be downloaded from the provincial government, so they want to take a wait and see approach.
“It just means that we'll be able to do a better budget with the benefit of more information,” adds Dilkens. “We'll wait for that information to come down from the province. Once we have it, we'll be in a position to put the budget in front of city council for deliberation.”
Dilkens adds delaying the budget process by 30 to 90 days won't have an adverse effect on the city's operations.
Dilkens shared the news during Friday’s orientation meeting for the new city council at Willistead Manor, where officials shared information on code of conduct and conflict of interest.
There are four new council members – Fabio Costante, Gary Kashchak, Kieran McKenzie and Jim Morrison.
The new council will be sworn into office on Monday.
