Today's The Province newspaper carries an an editorial on property tax increases mainly in Vancouver. Vancouver says the 6-13% tax hikes over the next year are due to an expected drop in revenues as the economy declines, annual wage increases for city workers, 96 new police officers and 22 civilian staff for the VPD as well.
The article also mentions the downloading of costs from the provincial and federal orders down to municipal governments. Township Councillor Mel Kositsky often reminds us that only 8% or 8 cents of every federal tax dollar makes its way to municipalities.
In the Township we are not getting 96 new police officers, but police, fire and public safety in general account for about 48% of our TOL budget. If you add in wage increases required by collective bargaining agreements, salaries account for somewhere in the neighbourhood of 87% of the TOL budget. This means that apart from wages and benefits, the Towsnhip is actually pretty lean and we are not the big spenders that a very small number of people would like us to believe.
The Towsnhip was slated to have a 5% increase in property taxes. The value of many homes in the TOL have been impacted downward by the economic meltdown. In fact, the Provincial government recently announced that they will use the 2007 BC Assessment values for collection of property taxes in 2008.
Mayor Green has stated several times that he would scrap the Township's approved plan to increase taxes by 5%. Latest discussions center around cuts in programs and increases in user fees. But aren't increases in user fees much the same as the tax increase? You might say that increases in user fees collect the cash from the people using various services, but aren't these Towsnhip services to be enjoyed by all? Many of us have no children in school yet we help pay for them. It's a slippery slope if you want to divide services and the dedicated responsibility to pay for them.
Now that Mayor Green has had over a month to examine the budget and receive consultation from senior staff it will be interesting to see where the TOL budget process goes in 2009. While none of us like paying more taxes, a 5% increase based on the amount and quality of what we receive is reasonable in our opinion. Perhaps Mayor Green will see the wisdom in this conservative proposal.
4 comments:
I talked to the finance people at the Township Hall and found out that last years tax increase cost me (with an averaged price house - $460,000) about $68 for the year. That is about 20 cents per day increase and that was a 5.5% increase.
WOW, Green and his band of merry follers maybe need to look closely at this 0% and consider all that will be lost or not done. I for one am in favour of a tax increase especially when it amounts to $.20 per day or one cup of Tim Horton's coffee a week!
Yes Rascle and based on the information you point to, one must wonder why a certain councillor and the mayor would try to paint a different picture.
The Langley Times Editor set the tone with his supportive Opinion before the election admonishing Township residents to pay attention to taxes. It therefore begs the question why he did that as well.
Looks like Township residents are getting "smoke and mirrors" eh?
Did Green ever come out with a platform to achieve the 0-0-0?
As we recall there were numerous promises and very little detail. In the final debate when pressed to the wall by Kurt Alberts to show how his land trust idea could possibly generate the required revenue in quick order, Green blamed Township staff for not providing him with details of TOL land holdings. To which Alberts rightly pointed out that Green was promising something he had not fully researched.
We are still waiting for Green to make the full list public as he promised, as any real estate investor or developer in his right mind knows that one could then see the pattern of TOL land acquisition and make some serious cash from a buy and hold strategy. We've heard some people question why a public release of this list would ever be done by a mayor and we won't be adding some of the speculation why for obvious reasons.
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