O'Brien's tax freeze promise will be tough to keep: councillors, researcher

Ottawa's mayor-elect Larry O'Brien said Tuesday he remains committed to freezing property taxes over the next four years— a task thatboth city councillors and experts say will be difficult without cuts to services.

Gord Hunter, a returning city councillor, has initiated motionsin the pastto freeze city spending.

'If the unions aren't willing to work with us on this, then there's going to have to be significant cuts.' -Ottawa city councillor Jan Harder

But evenHunter said the promise O'Brien made during his election campaign will be tough to keep.

"If I realistically thought we could go into 2007 and find that taxes wouldn't have to increase without gutting a lot of programs," he said, "I would have been promising that."

However, he said O'Brien— a political newcomer who was very successful in the business world— might have some new ideas.

O'Brien was the founder and former CEO of Calian Technologies, now a publicly traded company with sales of $170 million annually.

Coun. Jan Harder,who was alsore-elected on Monday,said the city employees union must pitch in to make the freezehappen withminimal pain to Ottawa residents.

"You see, if the unions aren't willing to work with us on this, then there's going to have to be significant cuts," Harder said, adding that voters have shown strong support for the tax freeze by electing O'Brien.

Short-term gain can mean long-term pain: researcher

Harry Kitchen, an economics professor at Trent University, said a tax freeze istypicallya tricky venture for municipalities.

Kitchen, who researches the way municipalities handle their finances, said most of a city's budget— such as spending on police, fire and social services— isn't really under its control.

Much of that is restricted by contracts with employees and provincial legislation.

Even service cuts are difficult, Kitchen said, as the city risks being sued if it doesn't maintain a certain level of service for things such as road and sidewalk maintenance.

Kitchen added that many municipalities that have cut spending in the short term have paid the price in the long term.

"The next thing you know, you think, 'My god— now we gotta go for a six per cent property tax increase to make up for all the past things we didn't do."