A report from Regional Council Wednesday night indicates a $2-million dollar operating shortfall for every month the pandemic lasts

It's a better number than what was once thought.

But the Region of Waterloo is still in for an operating shortfall of $2-million dollars for every month the COVID-19 pandemic lasts.

In a report presented to Regional Council Wednesday night, it indicates a $4.8-million dollar shortfall in user fee revenues, but there's been savings to help mitigate the losses, totalling about $2.8-million.

"That is unprecedented in regional history," says Regional Councillor Sean Strickland, "I don't believe there's ever been a time where we've run a deficit to that extent. I think even though the number is smaller than what we had anticipated, I still think it's very significant."

Much of the dollars and cents on both sides of the ledger are related to public transit.

The losses due to not collecting transit fares comes in at around $3.5-million dollars a month. Because of the pandemic, transit is free until at least May 31.

Meantime, just over $1.6-million dollars was offset by operating expenditures with a reduction in transit service.

Regional staff already identified some savings to be had, including about $2.6-million for the year by not proceeding with planned expansions to transit.

But Strickland says it's not so much this snapshot in time we should be worried about, it's the challenges that will come post-coronavirus.

"That's when we're going to see the risk to our budget on supplementary taxes, which we identify as about $4-million," he said, "Increased revenue risk to transit in terms of trying to get our ridership back, tax deferrals, taxes not coming in, people not being able to afford their taxes."

"I'm not overstating it. I think it's important to recognize that while $2-million dollars is significant, I think we're going to have much bigger financial challenges ahead."

He says with many municipalities facing similar challenges now and in the future, the provincial and federal governments will have to step in with more funding support.

"We're talking billions of dollars, multiple billions of dollars across Canada," Strickland says, "I think it's going to require federal government help, in addition to what ever the province (is doing)."

It's not like the upper levels of government aren't providing some kind of support already.

There's been funding given out related to housing and homelessness, and off-peak electricity pricing in Ontario is at off-peak every hour of every day, just to name a few.

Strickland says this report gives a good look into what could be ahead, and likes the direction we're headed, but we need to make sure we're ready for some of the risks ahead.

"We're going to need senior level of government support to get through this for the next year to 18 months," he said.

CLICK HERE for the report, starting on Page 36.