Port Alberni city councillors are cutting their own spending in the 2025 budget.
During a regular meeting of council on Monday, Jan. 27, councillors agreed to reduce council expenditures for conferences, training and travel by more than $18,000 in 2025.
Councillor Charles Mealey made the motion on Monday to reduce the budget line from $78,280 to $60,000. The budget will increase by $2,500 per year in subsequent years.
Mealey initially proposed capping individual council expenses to a maximum of $7,500, but other councillors disagreed with this. Port Alberni Mayor Sharie Minions said it's “super reasonable” to reduce the budget as a whole, but doesn’t want to cap specific councillors because not all of them have the same level of availability.
“I view a councillor who has a high expense as putting a ton of time into the job, and not a negative thing,” said Minions.
Councillor Dustin Dame said the reduced budget sends a message to the public that council is looking at its own spending habits during a "tough" budget year.
Monday's council meeting lasted almost six hours, as councillors went through the budget line-by-line and reduced their proposed tax increase from around 19 percent in 2025 to approximately 17 percent. However, council says more cuts will be coming before the budget is adopted in May.