If Councillors find budget savings at London Transit, will they invest in better bus service or mayor’s tax target?

London police are encouraging businesses and homeowners to register their CCTV cameras to help with investigations. CTV’s Gerry Dewan reports.

Already facing financial headwinds, London Transit will spend the next month looking for potential savings and new revenue in its budget.

On Friday, city councillors appointed as the interim London Transit Commission (LTC) directed staff to prepare a report about how it could participate in a municipality-wide effort to ease pressure on city hall‘s 2026 Budget Update.

Coun. Elizabeth Peloza, who serves as the mayor’s budget chair and as a member of the LTC, made a presentation to her colleagues, “This one is actually the last board to [hear] our delegation and request.”

Similar to her presentations to other municipally funded agencies, boards, and commissions (ABCs), Peloza asked that administration be directed to prepare a report containing:

• opportunities for savings in the 2026 budget
• ideas for revenue generation
• opportunities for delayed capital planning
• items for joint advocacy alongside the City of London
• opportunities for group purchasing with other municipal agencies and departments

The request by Peloza and Mayor Josh Morgan also requests that, “Commission staff continue to work with Civic Administration to find an appropriate assessment growth ask to be submitted at the next available opportunity.”

In January during the State of the City Address, the mayor announced his target of reducing the 2026 property tax increase to below 5 per cent.

He has since indicated that municipal departments and ABCs would be asked to bring forward ideas that would shave 1.5 per cent from their funding requests.

Peloza points out that the letter sent to the transit commission didn’t specify an amount, “There wasn’t the hard target of everyone must find 1.5 per cent. Some already did the reductions at the beginning of the multi-year budget. Some have found things along the way.”

After the meeting, LTC Chair Skylar Franke said she isn’t looking for budget savings derived from reducing bus service.

“That is not necessarily an interest of various Commissioners, myself included,” Franke told CTV News. “We’re more focused at trying to find efficiencies where possible. I think that given the importance of transit, I personally am not looking for reductions.”

If new revenue or budget savings are found in the LTC budget, it’s yet to be determined if the money will be reinvested back into improving transit service— or if it will be directed towards tax reduction.

“There’s definitely a need for more revenue at the transit commission, but I think [there] will be further discussion as to what the commission and what council wants to do with any potential savings,” Franke said.

Even as the LTC’s administration combs through their budget for new savings and revenue opportunities—the financial outlook is getting more challenging.

On Thursday, Fanshawe College announced an across-the-board 35 per cent reduction to its workforce in response to plummeting enrollment.

Specifically, a 30 per cent drop in total enrollment because of the federal cap on international students.

A mandatory $285 annual LTC bus pass is a part of each student’s fees.

London Transit’s budget anticipated declining enrolment at Fanshawe— but not to the extent announced by the school this week.

“In addition to the potential $1.5 million or $1.8 million that we could be short there,” explained Kelly Paleczny, G.M. London Transit. “We’re also looking for another million for the city to hit [its] target. So, it will just compound the hole that we’re trying to dig out of.”

The LTC will consider Paleczny’s high-level report about potential budget efficiencies on June 18.