Jennifer Smith

Before you read the headline in today's Champion, let me give you the real scoop on the budget:

Your property taxes will NOT be going up 4.6%.

Your taxes will be going up by 2.2%, for the reasons I explained in my previous post.  That's about $60 for the average home. It's also considerably less than the current rate of inflation, which stands at about 3% in Ontario.

Now that I've got that out of the way, here are the details from Monday's marathon budget meeting...

Mayor Krantz opened the meeting by stating his position up front: that he would not support a tax increase much above the rate of inflation. This was no surprise to anyone who has followed these things in the past, but given the real numbers I've discussed here it was a little disappointing to hear him take such a simplistic position.

The introductory portion of the evening revealed some other interesting numbers. One was the Municipal Price Index, which is essentially the rate of inflation being experienced by the Town itself. That currently stands at 4.23% - much higher than even the GTA rate of inflation because the Town spends so much on rapidly rising cost items like fuel and hydro.

Another interesting point was that Milton has the lowest property tax rate in the area, and the lowest per capita taxes by far in the entire 905 region. Remember that.

There were three big surprise motions Monday night, two of which came from Ward 4 Councillor Rick Malboeuf. The first was his motion to delete every single discretionary item on the list suggested by staff from the budget. This list - which I discussed in my previous post - presented various options for reducing the budget, in order of priority. Items in top half of the list were all approved for deletion except for the hiring of a new firefighter which was kept in, which would have brought the town budget increase down to about 3.3%.

But Mr. Malboeuf was adamant that we should go further and take it right down to 1.66%. Nobody was willing to make a clean sweep, however, so each item was discussed and voted on individually instead (this is why we were there until after midnight). Most items were kept in with a few exceptions - notably, the opening of the arts centre was delayed for two months, and the bike lane implementation was cut in half by spreading it out over four years, at Colin Best's suggestion.

On all but one or two items, Mr. Malboeuf and Tony Lambert voted to delete, and were often the only ones to do so.

Eventually, the town plus the library budgets increases were brought down to 3.58%, which was a few points below the original target. At which point, Mr. Malboeuf moved to slash a staggering $285,000 from the Transit budget on the grounds that it costs too much and nobody uses it anyway.

There was a collective gawp from the room.

I have to give credit to Zeeshan Hamid for his self-control at this point. Zeeshan has served on the Transit Advisory Committee for several years now and knows exactly how much progress has been made recently in terms of service levels, ridership and cost recovery. So for him to calmly and patiently explain all this to someone who apparently shares Rob Ford's disdain for public transit (Maboeuf actually used Mike Boughton's old line of "Use it or lose it") took what I thought was super-human restraint.

I probably would have thrown something.

After engineering staff also explained why such a drastic cut would be a monumentally bad idea even if it were possible - which it's not - Malboeuf backed off and instead asked that Council commit to try to make these cuts in the 2012 budget. That got approved, although I'm pretty sure it's not binding.

Rick Malboeuf and Zeeshan Hamid are both on the transit committee. This could get interesting.

The final surprise of the evening came from Ward 3 Councillor Cindy Lunau. The original budget included the establishment of a reserve fund to start saving for the local portion of the hospital expansion. The fund was to be started with $100,000 from the Community Funds (slots money), but Lunau moved that we implement a 1% tax levy instead. That would more than triple the amount deposited into the fund each year and would preserve the Community Fund for the purposes for which it was intended. Given that we will ultimately need to raise over $50 million, it's still not enough but certainly gets us closer.

I honestly didn't think her motion stood a chance of passing, but I was proven wrong. As councillor after councillor stood and spoke on the motion, I realized that more of them supported the idea than I would have guessed. I can only assume that they heard the same thing I did from voters over the summer: that the hospital expansion should be our number one priority, that we need to start saving for it now, and that for the vast majority of them (or at least the ones I spoke to), a small tax levy would be an acceptable way to do this.

Of those councillors who were opposed, some had what I think are legitimate concerns about their mandate to implement such a levy without additional public consultations. Mike Cluett in particular has taken this position, and while I disagree with him for a number of reasons I respect his desire to remain accountable to his constituents. I'm not quite as comfortable with the motives of some of the rest.

In the end, the motion was carried 6-5. The results were the same for the final vote on the budget:

Yeas: Best, Barkley, Lunau, Huffman, Di Lorenzo, Hamid
Nays: Krantz, Lambert, Nelson, Malboeuf, Cluett

The final hurdle for the 2011 budget will be Council approval this Monday, but since the budget committee is comprised of the entire council, I don't expect any more surprises.

Then again, I've been wrong before.

The 2011 Budget Documents are now online and ready for public perusal. Don't bother checking the Town of Milton website - even I couldn't spot them, and I'm more than passing familiar with the site. But happily, Councillor Mike Cluett has a handy set of links to all these documents on his blog.

The budget will be discussed and voted on next week, which means we will be hearing a lot of chest-thumping from some councillors about taxpayers and gravy trains and who knows what. Most councillors made election promises about where they plan to draw the line in terms of tax increases and will be doing their best to keep those promises. But whether they promised no increase, an increase at or below inflation, or just an effort to keep taxes "as low as possible", it's important to understand exactly what is being proposed and what those figures will ultimately mean to your property tax bill, now and in the future.

Here are the numbers:

3.0% - 3.4% = the rate of inflation in Ontario

29% = the Town portion of your tax bill (the rest is for the Region and Education)

5.72% = the original tax levy increase proposed by staff for the Town portion of your property taxes. That increase equals...

2.53% = the amount your taxes would actually increase overall, which amounts to...

$5.58 / month = the property tax impact on a $300,000 home.

3.03% = the suggested target for the tax increase to the Town portion of your tax bill using further budget reductions.

What this means is that, despite the panicked tone you might be hearing from some quarters, Council could pass the entire operating budget as is - including the arts centre, the bike lanes and the weekend buses - and your total tax increase would still be well under the current rate of inflation. That's because the Region is only proposing a 1.4% increase, and the education portion won't be rising at all.

The reductions suggested by staff to reach the lower 3.03% target can be found at the end of the budget summary. They include:

• Eliminating the hiring of new fire fighters
• Canceling the implementation of the bike lane network
• Canceling the implementation of Saturday and evening transit service
• Delaying the opening of the new Milton Centre for the Arts by 2-5 months
• Delaying the opening of the new Main Library by 2-5 months
• Reducing financial assistance for recreational programs

There are a couple of dozen other possible cost cutting measures on the list, and certainly several of them make sense. For example, we could save $50,000 a year by reducing tax rebates offered to owners of vacant buildings. Apparently not many people apply, and frankly I'm not sure we should be encouraging property owners to leave their properties unoccupied.

If we were to bring in just a few of those added reductions, that would leave the Town with quite a bit of wiggle room - enough, perhaps, for a small branch library at Bruce Street.

Of course we could try to slash costs further and save everyone a few bucks, but as someone once said, there's no such thing as a free lunch. With a town growing as fast as ours is, even trying to keep pace with the rate of inflation essentially amounts to moving backwards.  It might look good on paper (or at the ballot box), but since the Town's costs for fuel, labour, energy, etc. are always going up, trying to cut too much means reducing our level of service or - even worse - dumping those costs onto future budgets.

The long-term budget forecast prepared by staff bluntly states the inevitable consequences of cutting this year's operating budget:

"The results of the analysis indicate that tax increases of 7.5% and 5.21% in 2012 and 2013 respectively would be required if Council approves the proposed budget at a 3.89% increase. If a lower tax increase is approved for 2011 this may result in an increase in the tax levy in the forecast years as illustrated on page 347 of the budget document."

With the even lower 3.03% target, next year's increase would have to be well over 8%. On the other hand, if the original 5.89% increase is approved, the tax increases for next year and the year after would be progressively smaller: 5.47% and 5.10% respectively.

My recommendation to Council: Take advantage of the very low Regional tax increase proposed for this year and aim for a 5.7% - 5.9% Town portion increase. That will mean an overall tax increase of well under inflation for your constituents, allowing you to keep your promises and saving us all a major headache next year.

There will be a public information meeting on Wednesday, January 12th at High Foster Hall from 6:00-8:00 pm regarding the planned 'urbanization' of Oak St, Bruce St, Court St and Ashbrook Court. The plan is to install new storm sewers on these streets, plus curbs and new sidewalks on Oak and Ashbrook, plus watermain and sanitary sewer work on just Ashbrook.

Oak Street

The plans are in their final stages at this point, but it's always a good idea to stay informed whenever these 'street urbanization' projects move forward. Too often people aren't aware of what the plans are until construction starts and it's too late to provide any input.

A case in point is the reconstruction of Queen Street a year and a half ago. That project was put before residents at two public meetings where they were given a choice between keeping sidewalks on both sides of the street, or getting rid of one sidewalk so they could widen the road enough to allow for street parking.

The vast majority of those who attended the meetings opted for option one (two sidewalks, no parking), but either there weren't enough residents at the meetings or their councillor developed selective amnesia because Queen Street parking was somehow resurrected as an issue during the election last summer as if those meetings had never occurred.

In the case of Oak Street and Ashbrook, public meetings were held three years ago and again two years ago asking for feedback on the design plans. There were concerns raised about the loss of some trees and the bottom ends of people's driveways, many concerns about lousy drainage, and several people were adamant about not wanting a sidewalk on Ashbrook. On that last, while I can see their point (Ashbrook is a cul-de-sac), I used to have my workshop down there and I can attest to how difficult it is walking in the street during the winter or even during a heavy rain.

Anyway, if you live in the area and want one last chance to put in your two cents, come on down to the meeting.