Sault Ste. Marie city council approved its 2025 budget tonight, with a 3.68 per cent levy increase.
Excluding local boards, the municipal portion of the levy increase was up 1.43 per cent over last year.
Approved during a meeting that lasted almost 3½ hours, the budget includes six new city jobs, $45,000 for library security, $150,000 for downtown security, and $30,000 grants to Art Gallery of Algoma, Sault Ste. Marie Museum and the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre.
Councillors approved $180,000 in upgrades to parks.
Mayor Shoemaker said the list of proposed budgetary changes that council dealt with tonight was as long as he's seen during his 10 years on city council.
"Not all of them huge dollar amounts, but all them significant to the organizations that they impact, and trying to find that balance... is the job and some of us would have liked to have seen spending elsewhere, and some of us would have liked to see reductions in spending," the mayor said.
"The overall goal, though, is to try and find something that we know can be accepted by the community, while also providing the service that the community has come to expect."
"I think this budget largely achieves that, and we'll move forward and hope for the best 2025 that we can have with what we have approved," Shoemaker said.
The following are the six new jobs to be created:
Records and election coordinator – $59,776
Responsible for managing the city's freedom of information requests; the city's corporate records program including inventory, interpretation, application of the record retention policy and schedule, internal compliance auditing, destruction, disposition, and reporting, etc.; maintaining the corporate policy manual; assisting with digitization of corporate records; and acting as the election coordinator for regular elections and byelections.
The freedom of information work is currently done by the legal department and this hiring would save $81,000 by freeing city lawyers to focus on other work.
Application support analyst/programmer - $132,602
This new position will play a key role in ensuring current and future ERP (enterprise resource planning) applications are implemented, managed and supported effectively.
It will also add support required for the growing application user base, increasing complexity and needed integration between multiple systems.
It will develop and support automated data processes and dashboards to communicate insights to staff and the public.
Maintenance employee - $87,056
The city's public works department asked for one full-time parks playground maintenance employee.
City council has approved in principle to replace aged playgrounds over 10 years old, in addition to maintaining continuous operations of the new skating trail, Bellevue splash pad, Manzo Park splash pad and Downtown Plaza, additional staffing resources are considered necessary to maintain optimal levels of service provision.
In addition, there's been no historical staffing increase to address Penhorwood Park disc golf course, Strathclair off-leash dog park, Esposito Park pump track, Clergue Park outdoor exercise equipment or Queen Elizabeth skateboard park.
Events assistant - $97,084 (including benefits)
The recently approved parks and recreation master plan identified the need for additional staff to support community events.
During community consultation, it was reported that community events were strongly desired by residents – particularly free events, licensed events for adults and more culturally relevant events for shifting demographics.
The additional staff member will help increase the number of community events taking place, increase promotion and marketing of events, and work with Tourism Sault Ste. Marie and other entities on tourism-focused events.
The new hire will also work on developing winter events and events designed for adults.
Clerical research assistant - $83,983
Clerical staff complement has not changed in the city's legal department since 2016.
Since then, increases have been made to other departments including bylaw enforcement and the legal department has added a lawyer and a risk manager, which has increased the volume and variety of work.
Legal has no articling student or paralegal to assist in clerical and junior specialized legal work.
Legal is not able to recruit a replacement to cover temporary leaves when they occur, even on 12- and 18-month leaves.
Tourism - Cultural industry co-ordinator - $100,591
The film, TV and digital media coordinator will be responsible for film and TV production and creative industries attraction. The position also supports productions that are filming in Sault Ste. Marie. The temporary employment contract will expire Feb. 28, 2025.
On average film production contributes approximately $8 million annually to the local economy. This does not include film infrastructure, such as Rolling Picture and Stardust Studio. Film infrastructure provides permanent full-time employment opportunities in the community and has resulted in investments in the downtown, through improvements to buildings.
Tax policy, rate options and other recommendations will be presented to council in March/April of next year.
SooToday will have further coverage of the 2025 city budget.