The City is experiencing reduced permit, licensing, and fee revenues in other departments throughout the City such as Engineering, Finance, Clerk’s Office, Parks and Building & Planning. While this revenue shortfall at the end of April is estimated at approximately $150,000, it is much too early to truly assess the longer-term impacts.
The reduction in City services has also resulted in fuel savings for the Fleet area estimated at $40,000 to the end of April.
Increased costs of approximately $230,000 are expected in Parks & Facilities area as a result of the need to procure additional cleaning & sanitation supplies, materials and personal protective equipment.
The City has also arranged to reduce restrictions for garbage collection for a month to allow every household to place up to two extra bags with their garbage on their scheduled collection day. Additional costs to Public Work Operations related to this initiative could total approximately $130,000 depending on the extra tonnage collected.
Information Technology is also expected to incur increased costs of $50,000 due the expanded technology requirements to enable staff to work from home and to allow for enhanced conference calls and virtual meeting abilities.
Staff Lay-offs
The partial lay-off of seasonal, temporary full time L82, temporary part time recreation employees and non-union arena staff became effective on April 6, 2020. The layoff of these employees will result in approximately $135,000 in weekly savings totalling approximately $400,000 by the end of April. These savings will partially offset revenue losses in other areas like Recreation and Culture.
Corporate Impacts
The COVID pandemic has impacted all aspects our society, including the following areas:
YQG and Windsor Detroit Border Link Dividends – Cross border and air travel has been severely restricted during this period resulting in significant revenue losses for tunnel toll revenues and airport operations. It is expected that the $1M dividends respectively received from each of these entities will not materialize for 2020. This would result in a $2M variance in the City’s operating budget.
OLGC Casino Revenue – Caesars Windsor, along with many other establishments in the city, has been closed during the pandemic. It is estimated that the City will lose approximately $1.6M in slot revenue as at the end of April with further revenue losses and reductions expected for the balance of 2020 as continued social distancing measures impact the Casino’s operations .