Money is tight for operations of the Eastlink Centre this fall, after a 1.75 million dollar deficit was discovered.
The shortfall came as a result of incorrectly reported revenues, which Community Living Director Garry Roth says led city administration to believe that revenue from the facility was on track with their forecasts.
“The reality was is that we weren’t, but our expenditures were also not out of line with our budget. It’s just that our revenues were less than we expected, and it wasn’t picked up on until later in the year.”
As a result, some job contracts have not been renewed and all non-essential spending is on hold.
“We’ve had about 30 people whose temporary contracts were coming due that were not renewed. If you take those 30 and amortize over the course of a year, that’s about $800,000 in savings.”
A recent business review revealed the discrepancy, which Roth says could have been done sooner, but they were also trying to realize what the demand on the facility from the community was going to be like.
“We were busy trying to respond to the demands for service, and sometimes you get focused on just trying to keep your head above water, so to speak. This has been really good to give us that wake up call, by doing this review and making sure that we have the right model in place for future.”
The review is still ongoing, and is expected to result in a much leaner organization structure for the operation of the Eastlink Centre.