Jennifer Smith

The final two reports presented at last Monday's council meeting set the stage for the budget deliberations that will consume our new councillors for the next two months. I must say, as anxious as I was to being elected, I don't envy them right now. It's a monumental task to be thrown into right off the bat, but fortunately most of them have been paying close attention for at least the past year and are still keen enough to enthusiastically read every one of the thousands of pages of documents they get handed every week.

Well, I know at least Zeeshan does.

I actually found the presentation by the economic consultant to be quite fascinating, probably because the man himself was an enthusiastic speaker (gotta love an accountant who loves his work).

It's a lot of material (316 pages total), but several points were made in the summary presentation that put a lot of it into context:

• Total growth-related capital costs over the next 10 years for the Town of Milton are forecast to be $945 million dollars which includes roads, parks, arenas, libraries, the fire department, expansion of Town Hall and the arts centre, etc. About $524 million of that is recoverable through development charges (DCs) - the rest will be covered through property taxes, debentures (debt) and direct contributions from developers.

• Municipalities used to be able to cover all growth-related capital costs through DCs. That was the case when the Town first formalized its growth plan, but shortly after (circa 1997), the Province changed the rules and disallowed many items from being covered - including hospitals. These days we can only cover about 60% through DCs

• The debt capacity of the Town is limited by law to 25% of expenditures. Town policy is to limit it further to 20%, but given our rate of growth we would exceed both those marks within a very few years without developers agreeing to cover some capital costs. Without those agreements we would be forced to slow down growth. Oddly, that was completely dismissed as an option.

• Residential growth always costs more than it brings in in terms of DCs and property taxes, whereas commercial and industrial development brings in more than it costs. And because our residential development actually has a bit of catching up to do over the next few years - until Derry Green starts up - our cost/revenue ratio is going to be a bit out of whack for the next little while.

There were also a few line items in the capital forecast from the fiscal impact report that caught my eye. One was $40 million for the local share for the hospital. Another was $25 million for Phase 2 of the Town Hall expansion. And then there is a little over $1 million accounted for under "Bruce Street Facility Renovation", which makes me wonder when that was added.

My favourite was the $62,500 for upgrades to the 'Spice of Life Parkette', which is a patch of grass at Main and Charles about the size of my livingroom that already has a bench, a mural, and some rather elaborate landscaping. I'm not sure what they have in mind for that. Perhaps a hot tub and martini bar?