Cost saving measures by city administration have mitigated the Eastlink Centre’s projected deficit by roughly a million dollars.
At one point the forecast deficit for the recreation facility was trending towards $2.6 million,
Community Living Director Garry Roth says they acted quickly in cutting down on expenses.
“That included any unnecessary spending that we could absolutely identify as well as reducing our staffing costs. We actually ended up with an approximately $1.6 million deficit. That’s still not good for our community but at the same time we did our best to reduce that down as much as we could.”
Roth says moving forward there will be a particular focus on better promotion of the recreation facility.
“Our new budget does contain some sales positions. We’re looking at minimum staffing levels and then adding some sales positions on top of that as well as making sure we have programming staff that can deliver enhanced programming for our customers.”
A revised operational budget of $4.5 million, up from a first draft that sought $4.2 million, has been requested for approval by city council.
The revision includes an additional $320,485 to expand marketing and programming for the facility.
Roth says a full report on the Eastlink Centre’s operations from the consultants hired should be ready by the end of April.