By Brad Hodge
Published: May 4, 2013
Budget season is drawing to a close and it looks like council has settled on a 10.2 per cent tax increase for residential property and 10.4 per cent increase on business property.
We’ve been told this is necessary due to rising expenditures.
District staff, charged with finding savings after a howl of protest from the public over proposed increases that were even higher, says this is the best we can do. Is it?
I took a look at the budget documents of about ten municipalities close to our size across Canada.
Municipal budgeting is murky and with different funding arrangements between regional and municipal governments; it’s difficult sometimes to do direct comparisons.
But one theme across the board was holding the line on property taxes.
Port Colborne (pop. 18,766) kept its increase this year to about 1.43 per cent.
Midland, Ontario (pop. 16,572) also held their increase to 1.44 per cent. Chestermere, Alberta (pop. 14,824 ) had a larger increase at 3.5 per cent.
It would appear that our increase of 10.2 per cent is a bit of an outlier.
In these communities’ budget debates, the theme is common: we must get administrative costs under control.
For most, personnel costs consume the majority of their budgets.
Midland, having 70 per cent of its budget consumed by personnel costs, hired KPMG to examine its staffing, and KPMG suggested eliminating up to 26 positions via retirement, as one example.
Even much smaller communities are getting tough: tiny Arnprior (pop. 8800) has threatened lockouts in order to gain concessions from CUPE on wages and benefits.
And it isn’t the only one.
Communities also haven’t been shy at sacrificing other sacred cows – some have cut transit budgets, some have reduced grants. There is room to manoeuvre.
What may be lacking is the political will.
Here are some ideas:
1) Reduce council pay. Asking CUPE to hold the line on wages when council just hiked its own pay twice in a year is hypocritical. Cut deeply and send a symbolic message to both CUPE and taxpayers.
2) Reduce grants. There is certainly value in what volunteer groups do. However, I am involved in a few volunteer groups and we raise our own funds. If the district budget won’t balance without big tax increases, the money spigots need to be dialed back for now.
3) Dig in on wages and benefits with CUPE. Other municipalities have. I’m not suggesting widespread layoffs, but at least get tough on wage & benefit increases. Fight for the taxpayer. Don’t be afraid of the word lockout.
4) Staffing levels –the district is among the largest employers in the district. Do what other communities have done and take a hard look at staffing. My bet is there is room to move here.
5) Where’s Waldo? Tell staff the tax increase will be X per cent (X being a lot lower than 10.2 per cent) and tell them to find the savings. They’ll protest, but based on the experience elsewhere, the savings are there. Find them. (One 3-letter example: SAC)
That’s a few ideas, none of them really new. I think Squamish has the means to live without big annual tax increases. The question is, do we have the will?
