City Manager Jeff Trail says the various municipal departments are offsetting wage increases by cutting back on goods and services but doing that for too long will adversely affect delivery of services to the public.
The city’s Finance Committee has been told by Fire Chief Kevin Clifford that arbitration decisions on contracts for firefighters are beyond the capacity to pay. Committee members were told the base salary for a first class firefighter is over 79 thousand dollars and up to $120 thousand dollars a year when benefits are accounted for.
Clifford says the fire department has to cover a far larger area compared to Moncton and Fredericton and this increases response times in outlying areas of the city. He adds the hazard profile of Saint John is unlike anywhere else in Canada.
Nonetheless, Common Councillor Greg Norton says the escalating cost of protective services was an issue last year and that hasn’t changed.
Road reconstruction next year is seen as a challenge because of the escalating cost of the contracts to carry out the work. It costs as much as six times more to resonstruct a road as it does to repave one.
