Welland cannot make responsible financial decisions without knowing exactly where its money is going and whether residents are getting value for it.

April Jeffs will commission an independent, comprehensive review of City spending, including a value-for-money audit and Core Services Review. The review will examine City programs, services, contracts, fees and expenditures to identify unnecessary spending, find efficiencies and determine whether municipal programs are delivering the results residents expect.

Where spending cannot be justified, April will work to eliminate it. Where programs are not delivering results, they should be reviewed, changed or discontinued.

Every dollar spent by City Hall ultimately comes from taxpayers. When families are being asked to make difficult decisions about their household budgets, municipal government must demonstrate the same discipline.

April will work to keep taxation as low as possible by controlling unnecessary costs and prioritizing investments that directly benefit Welland residents. Tax increases should never be treated as the automatic solution to budget pressures. Before asking residents to contribute more, City Hall must first show that it is using existing resources responsibly and efficiently.

Controlling spending is only one side of keeping taxes affordable. Welland also needs to grow its economy. Our city has experienced significant residential growth, but commercial growth must keep pace. Residential taxpayers cannot be expected to carry an increasingly disproportionate share of Welland’s tax burden.

April will work to make Welland a city that welcomes commercial investment and makes it easier for businesses to establish, expand and create jobs here.

City Hall is spending your hard-earned tax dollars, and residents deserve a meaningful say in how that money is spent.

April will increase public consultation as part of the City’s budgeting and spending process, including open budget town halls where residents can hear directly from Council, the Mayor and the Budget Committee, ask questions and raise concerns about proposed spending.

Budget information should also be easier to understand. Residents should not need to be financial experts to know where their tax dollars are going or why major expenditures are being proposed.

For seniors living on fixed incomes, increasing property taxes can create significant financial pressure, particularly for residents who have spent decades living in and contributing to Welland. Long-time residents should not be forced to leave their homes simply because rising property taxes have become difficult to manage.

April will explore a property tax deferral program for eligible seniors that would allow qualifying homeowners to defer increases in their municipal property taxes. Eligible taxes could instead be recovered when the property is eventually sold or transferred.

Responsible spending also means getting our priorities straight. April is proposing a Back-to-Basics Guarantee that will put Welland’s most important needs ahead of unnecessary spending. Before City Hall takes on new projects, we need to make sure we are taking care of the fundamentals residents rely on every day.

That means prioritizing roads and infrastructure repair, maintaining core City services and addressing the problems residents see every day. It also means supporting the revitalization of downtown Welland, so our city centre is cleaner, safer, more welcoming and better positioned for businesses, residents and visitors.

Welland should fix what is broken, maintain what we already have and address our most pressing needs before spending money on projects that are simply nice to have.