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That means an increase from 2.7 per cent to 3.1, is $12 more a year.

“This could lead to service reductions. That is the discussion we will have. There may be areas where we target,” said Morgan.

“The decisions will come later.”

Council directed staff to prepare the report, a broad overview of city spending for the committee meeting. Council will then be able to ask and assess the impact of cuts to certain areas.

“It allows us and councillors an opportunity to identify areas we may want to target for savings in the budget process. They have given us a review of services, a profile of service areas” said Morgan.

Councillors may flag certain areas for review and staff can do a more detailed analysis to determine the impact of cuts.

“If we don’t flag many areas, it won’t be a long meeting,” said Morgan.

The $6.6 million the province announced in the May budget includes more costs to policing, child care services, the health unit, ambulance and some conservation authority programs, to name a few.

Any further cuts would come in addition to $4 million already cut from city spending from 2015 to 2019.

There was a 2.7 per cent increase this year for property taxpayers. The 2020 increase now sits at 3.1 per cent, 0.9 per cent of that is from downloading. The proposed increase drops to 2.7 per cent in 2021, where the downloading only hits the city with a 0.2 per cent hike and then sits at 2.5 per cent in 2022 and slightly lower than that in 2023.

“It is about giving them various pieces of information about understanding all the services the city provides and areas they wish to look at to give us direction,” said Kyle Murray, director financial services for the city.

The city has an annual budget of $971.5 million.