2023-2027 Financial Plan Update
Motion
That Council direct Staff to eliminate the $1.1 million in funding from the Special Initiatives Reserve previously allocated to reduce property taxes in 2023.
Sources
Agenda itemCity agenda
That Council direct Staff to eliminate the $1.1 million in funding from the Special Initiatives Reserve previously allocated to reduce property taxes in 2023.
Thorp, please. Thank you very much for worship. I would like to discuss this or bring it forward again. . Uh, , this was A topic regarding our financial plan, and it has a direct impact on our taxpayers for this year. The recommendation which I am speaking to is one that, says Council direct staff to eliminate the $1.1 million in funding from the special initiatives reserved, which had been previously allocated to reduce property taxes in 2023. . And your worship. I'm simply not prepared to have this slide through on it as a consent item. It was it was debated, but it was a close debate. And I think it deserves further consideration. When we started our tax deliberations back last fall, we started with a starting point of a 6.2. . I believe a tax increase. . Which at the time I thought was disappointingly high. I came to accept the fact that in this time of rampant inflation and financial considerations that actually was not too unreasonable, and I was prepared to live with that council went through several, uh, debates various motions regarding our tax level. . And we ended up hiring additional safety security personnel, particularly firefighters, which I supported and got to a tax increase at 7.2%. . That was what was brought to us. At the Finance and Audit Committee meeting of April 19. . And that meeting this motion or this recommendation came forward from council to, , um Increase this year's tax levy from 6.4% up to 7.2%. . And the reasoning which I considered rather nebulous was that that could be better used to offset a bigger tax increase a year from now. Well, I would argue that many things can happen between now and next year. And I think now is the time that citizens need the tax relief that we can give them. . So I am prepared to support a 6.4% increase, but I'm not prepared to unnecessarily. . Raise it to 7.2%. Maybe there will be a future savings. Maybe not. But that's a discussion for next year. So that's my position on that your worship and I want to make that very clear. Thank you. Thank
Thank you worship. I'm going to remain with my vote on this as I did in committee, and the rationale for that is that when we're doing our four year Five year financial plan. We have forecasted tax hike or tax rate hikes every year and the tax hike or the tax increase part of me for 2024. I can't remember. But it was in the eight or 9%. And I'm seeing Mr Rudolph 90.18 point one so that was before any debate before any additional programming before any Anything that that the community brings to us over the next year. We're starting at 8.1. And so what I tried to do by moving that was to reduce this year's or part of the increase this year's and thereby reducing next year's and seeing the increased be smoothed out for residents over the five year financial plan rather than the sharp spikes. . Um That the staff report indicated so I'm not willing to change my vote on this, , Um That's it. Thank you.
Thank you Worship. Yeah, I'm not gonna change my vote on this. I think it's the responsible thing to do to continue to allocate to our reserve fund and to use the reserves for those things that we said we would use them for, and I don't think it's responsible to bump tax increase down down the road to future years, so I'll continue to
Thank you very much. I suppose I could say given Mr Rudolph's reminder tonight of what this actually amounts to the spending a lot of time talking about trifles, But it also reflects varying views about what we think is important and financial planning. Etcetera. We have a multitude of reserves funds statutorily required otherwise others set up by council. . I'm going to go with the with Harold Wilson, the British prime minister. I've quoted many times here who once said that in politics a week is a long time in a year isn't eternity. . In an eternity. In other words in another year, I have no idea what will be facing. We have finished, as is always the case with municipal governments with the surplus every year. Whether it is six this year and eight next or seven and seven. Nothing is certain. What is certain is that I can establish this year's budget. . By a vote, and so I am not going to support the initiative. I'm not changing my vote from before. I think we know where the numbers are going to fall, and we'll see what happens in a year. So unless anyone else has anything to say the motion is that staff eliminate the 1.1 million in funding from the special Reserves Initiative previously allocated to reduce property tax in 2023 all those in favor. .