City councillors attended the inaugural meeting of Ottawa's audit, budget and finance committee Tuesday, and set their sights on the 2010 budget, which looks like a tough one.

As in previous years, the city is facing a lot of financial pressures:

• Fixing west-end sewers.
• Controlling spillage into the Ottawa River.
• Dealing with a $37-million legal settlement after the light-rail project was cancelled.
• Paying for the new green-bin program.
• Absorbing a 2.5 per cent increase in labour costs.

Unlike in previous years, councillors are refusing to set a tax target.

In budgets past, councillors would first set a property tax-increase target, then order city staff to tailor their programs or services to fit the funding. Cherished programs and services were often caught in the crossfire, the public would react angrily, council would balk, and the tax target would rise.

This year, things are different. Councillors are doing the math themselves at the committee level, and most — including Coun. Alex Cullen — are refusing to pick a number just yet.

"The goal is to come in with a reasonable tax increase so that we can maintain our services and grow our city. Whether that's three per cent, five per cent, those numbers ... too early in the game to say," Cullen said Tuesday.

River Ward Coun. Maria McRae said it's all adding up to make for an especially tough budget year.

"The public has told us, fix our river, fix our streets, fix our buildings. We have to hear them loud and clear, and I will not be making any judgments before that budget is tabled," McRae said.

One number councillors will definitely not be bouncing around is zero. In the last city budget, Mayor Larry O'Brien made much use of his slogan, "zero means zero" tax increase. This time, even the mayor pronounced his tax-freeze dream dead and buried.