Ottawa City Hall

Sports and arts lovers, drivers and transit users alike in Ottawa will feel the pinch if the city's cost-saving 2008 draft budget goes through.

City staff yesterday proposed a plan to council which suggested several user fee increases and a long list of program eliminations and deferrals in an attempt to deal with the municipality's projected $152-million shortfall next year.

Among the measures proposed to provide the city with up to $79 million in new revenues were a five-per-cent hike in transit fees; an almost $45 per-hour increase in ice time rental fees for adults and a near-doubling of the charge for children, both to $210; and extending parking charges to weekends and later in the evenings, as well as putting up parking meters in new areas.

Mayor Larry O'Brien's campaign chief Gordon J. Hunter, who authored the report, also suggested eliminating a $3-million business transformation project to improve the way the public does business with the city; closing down 10 of the city's 33 library branches to save $2.1 million; cancelling $2.2-million-worth of transit improvements and reducing eight bus routes for savings of $1.3 million; and deferring $1.08 million in funding for museums and the arts.

Mr. O'Brien has been fighting hard to keep his "zero-means-zero" tax freeze campaign promise, but the property tax hike is looking increasingly likely.

If no program cuts are made, property taxes must rise by 7.3 per cent to balance the budget.