A 50% increase in staff positions in the Mayor’s Office, leading to $300,000 in additional expenses? What’s the story there?
The 5% Hotel Tax will go to support future expansion of the Winnipeg Convention Centre? Ugh. Convention centres are a terrible economic development strategy.
While I know some folks would disagree with me (Brodbeck most notably), I think cutting the public art budget from $500K to $100K is petty. Personally, I think consistent investment in public art will do more for sustained tourism than extra square footage at the Convention Centre ever could. But I guess the Winnipeg Arts Council doesn’t wine and dine its board members like the Convention Centre does.
Doubling the bulky waste collection fee from $10 to $20 will raise an additional $30,000…and lead to a lot more couches being abandoned in back lanes.
It appears the City is transferring an additional $5.5 million from the water/sewer utility into general revenue. That doesn’t seem consistent with what the Mayor said during the State of the City about these operations.
Why does the City continue to provide $75,000 annually to the National Volleyball Teams? Is it really worth it? Shouldn’t this funding be coming from the Province instead?
City of Winnipeg 2008 Preliminary Operating Budget
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From the Freep’s early coverage of the City budget:
The budget also proposed setting aside $2.75 million for a rapid transit reserve fund.
“We’ll tap into it when the opportunity (to build rapid transit) exists and we’ll need matching funds,” Katz said.
Given the history of the rapid transit debate at City Hall, I imagine the heads of certain councillors (Gerbasi) will explode upon reading that comment.
Let’s see, the hotel community get together and decide that they want to bring forward a destination marketing fund, they tell the city and what does the city do? They steal the idea. Further the city, it seems will not dedicate all of the money to tourism marketing as in every other jurisdiction. They then blame the hotel operators. Amazing.
Has there ever been an actual need articulated for the expansion of the Convention Centre? We’ve been reading for years about the expansion (and what of the recent retrofit – is that passe already?), but how many shows have they turned down? What is their occupancy rate like now?
@JimmyMac – You’re right on the money.
@Proud – Great questions. No answers that I’ve ever seen.
Public art…slashed 4/5!
The winnipeg rapid transit website puts the costs at over 3.5 million. How is 2.5 ‘on reserve’ going to make a difference?
So the city has this new 5% tax with NONE of the money dedicated to tourism development. The economy is slowing, US visitors have been and are on the decline, we’ve had major hotels close due to a lack of business BUT Sam and EPC aren’t throwing a dime to Destination Winnipeg in this budget to bring one more person to the city. A new coinvention centre will cost over $100 million and some estimates say $200 million. How will three or four million a year make a dent in that capital nut. everyother convention centre in Canada is built with federal, Provincial and Municaipal money NOT a tourism tax. How does this crew at 510 Main believe that they can build a new addition to the convention centre with a tax? Where is the vision, the plan?
OOps, that was supposed to read 350 million.
What’s the difference between an entertainment tax and a hotel tax?
Well for one thing the Mayor owns an entertainment company and a baseball team, but he doesn’t own a hotel.