The City of Winnipeg does not appear ready to accelerate the removal of needles and weapons from parks.

The council’s community services committee took no action on Monday following a report listing two options to hire more staff and provide daily pickups at key parks.

An option to target 36 “priority parks” for enhanced cleaning would have cost $193,704 per year and would have run from April to October. Another would have cost $262,884 and continued all year.

“Our budget is already exhausted and we need to ensure that responsibility for needle management is shared appropriately. We want to work with our partners, but there must be a fair and sustainable plan that benefits everyone,” the Council wrote. Vivian Santos, chair of the committee, in an emailed statement.

Santos (Point Douglas) said needles make up a significant portion of the debris, so Manitoba Health and the harm reduction groups that distribute them need to help find long-term solutions.

The committee also voted to ask city council to ask the provincial government to create a needle exchange program that encourages the return of used needles from Winnipeg.