St. Catharines may have to bite the bullet and hire someone to manage its records despite COVID-19 financial pressures, after the budget committee heard the city is barely meeting its obligations under municipal law.

A staff report for the budget standing committee Monday said records management at the city has been under-resourced for decades and the city needs to act now because problems won’t go away over time.

Instead, they’ll continue to grow as the city creates more and more records and data.