Jennifer Smith

It was another marathon session at last night's Council meeting. I think most were expecting the bulk of the discussion to be around the 2011 Budget Call Report, but by the time they got around to that point in the agenda it was almost as if everyone was too tired to speak any more.

Of course, the current council is rapidly approaching lame duck status, and it was rightly noted that most decisions on the upcoming budget will be in the hands of the next council. Don't forget - at least four, and probably five or six of those council members are going to be replaced by newcomers, all with fresh ideas and fresh eyes on the Town's budget.

One concept that has been floated by several of those potential newcomers is the idea of zero-based budgeting, which essentially means starting from scratch and having each department justify their budget requests on their own merit, regardless of past years' budgets.

I fully support this approach.

Having run my own business - and done my own taxes - for pretty much all of my adult life, I know how easy it is to fall into the trap of doing things the same way year after year, and how essential it is to step back and re-evaluate from time to time. Is this product line really viable or should I drop it? Should I continue with my regular supplier or start looking for a better deal? Are there alternative shipping or packaging options out there that could be saving me money? Will having this new piece of equipment really increase productivity or add value for my customers?

Sometimes all it takes is an outsider coming in to question the status quo.

The current 'rolling budget' approach is to use last year's budget as a starting point and then add for growth and inflation. This works fine when your assessment growth and user fees are growing at the same rate, but in the current economic climate and with the housing market starting to cool, we are beginning to see the flaws in this approach. The Budget Call Report states it baldly:

The modelling at this stage in the budget process indicates that the Town will not have adequate revenue from assessment growth to cover identified operating costs associated with growth. As staff prepare the detailed budget estimates, additional costs and revenues related to expanding programs and services to the new population will be identified. The estimate for the assessment growth will also be further refined as the year progresses. For 2011 it is unlikely that costs associated with growth will be fully offset by the incremental revenue from assessment growth.

In the simplest terms, we're looking at growth related expenditures increasing by 6.15%, but assessment growth of only 5.65%. And when Milton starts to approach build-out, the disparity is only going to get worse.

This is, unfortunately, a foreseeable problem associated with heavy reliance on growth to maintain a balanced budget. Eventually growth slows and stops, but the cost of servicing that growth continues to increase for a time because it's always lagging behind - especially for so-called 'soft services' such as sports and recreation facilities. One need only look over the border to Mississauga for a real world example of what could happen to our taxes when Milton reaches the end of its rapid growth phase.

Unfortunately, this is a problem which stems from decisions made many years ago. What we need to do now is prepare for it, try to compensate for it, look for innovative solutions, and maybe look a little further down the road than just the end of the next fiscal year as we make our own decisions moving into the future.