A property tax surcharge to cover this year's hefty snow removal bill has been voted down by Ottawa city council.

Councillors rejected the idea at Wednesday's council meeting, a week after Mayor Larry O'Brien proposed the tax surcharge of about 2 per cent to deal with a projected $23 million shortfall in the city's snow clearing budget.

Earlier in the meeting, treasurer Marian Simulik gave a budget update confirming the snow clearing deficit along with a number of other cost pressures. Diesel fuel will be $2.4 million more expensive than expected, she said. At the same time, revenues could be lower than predicted because council is likely to put off its plan to require people to pay for parking at city meters late into the evening and on Sundays.

Council discussed whether to boost next year's tax hike from 4.9 per cent to 7.7 per cent, but eventually rejected the idea.

Over the course of discussions, they managed to find a way to cover $10 million of the snow clearing shortfall.

Councillors also voted against a proposal by Coun. Steve Desroches to reopen the budget and examine it line by line in search of potential cost savings.

Innes ward Coun. Rainer Bloess had been in favour of Desroches's proposal in order to "make some of the decisions that we ducked the first time around."

Council considered a long list of cost-saving measures during budget deliberations in the fall, Bloess said.

"Most of them we didn't accept.… Now that the real numbers are staring us in the face, it's probably time to look at them and see which ones we want to accept."

Some council members, including Gloucester-Southgate Coun. Diane Deans, didn't think that was necessary.

"I think it's being a little hysterical for some of our staff and some of the people around this table to think that this is a doom-and-gloom scenario," Deans said.

"We always have peaks and valleys in every budget year like we're having this year and I happen to be optimistic enough to think that it's all going to come out at the end of the year in the wash."