Vernon council approves mid-level tax hike

“The rest of the things we’ve done are really around operational growth. We all know the community is growing so we’ve added some small amounts of increase in the finance department administration; we’ve increased the transit system by a little bit; we need an extra person in IT, everybody knows why that’s important; and an increase in our planning department to manage the increase in development proposals.”

The hike would cover all service level adjustments, with the exception of hiring two new RCMP officers through taxation, and instead fund those jobs using reserves.

“What happens with the RCMP is we commit funding and then they go through significant provincial and national process to try to actually get the members approved, and once they’re approved they are here on our force, and once on our force they will be included in our long-term taxation,” Cumming said.

“But in the meantime, we have significant fundingin the RCMP reserve and we’ll be able to fund them as soon as they arrive.”

The other options on the table were to support all service level adjustments, resulting in a tax increase of 6.39 per cent; or to raise taxes by 5.11 per cent by funding the RCMP officers through reserves, as well as fund a portion of a transit contract through reserves in 2024 and cover the remainder in 2025.

The motion passed with a vote of four to two, with Councillor Brian Quiring and Mayor Victor Cumming voting in opposition.

“We were hoping for using reserves funds for transit, which would have lowered the tax slightly again, but we didn’t get full support,” Cumming said, adding the rest of Council was very adamant on maintaining reserves.

“[We had a] long discussion about use of reserves and how much we would use this time and how much we wouldn’t. We are experiencing, like many people, you plan a project, you put it out to tender and the tenders come in higher than you expect, and that’s when we’ve been using our reserves. So Council’s view was to hold reserves so that we can implement the items that we have committed to in the budget both in the operational budget and in the capital budget.”

The original proposed tax hikes were higher at 7.41, 6.51 and 6.12 per cent respectively, but they were brought down thanks to the City of Vernon, District of Coldstream and RDNO Areas B and C coming to a Fee for Service agreement for recreation services.

Council also accepted all the proposed service level adjustments, with the exception of additional the request from O’Keefe Ranch to increase funding from $50,000 to $100,000.

Below are a breakdown of the departmental budgets approved for 2024 as of Monday, Dec. 4.

RCMP: $12,721,085

Fire Rescue Services: $8,670,017

Operations – General: $712,578

Operations – Infrastructure: $715,797

Operations – Public Works: $6,354,498

Operations – Parks: $4,011,150

Operations – Facilities: $1,709,478

Operations – Utilities: $379,049

2024 Infrastructure Program: $7,219,373

Planning & Community Services: $5,050,824

Recreation Services: $3,470,459

Human Resources: $2,000,355

Administration & Council: $1,009,133

Financial Services: $5,158,079

Corporal Administration: $6,591,905

Change Requests Nor Recommended by Administration (Parks Asset Management Plan)*: $525,000

Total Budget of 2024: $55,457,543

Cumming noted that Council amended the motion to break up the Parks Asset Management Plan and redistribute the funding to the capital replacement budget rather than leave it in operations.

While the item will be removed from the list when finalized, the $525,000 allocated for that work would still be included in the budget, just spread out in the departments overseeing the work involved park assets such as irrigation and playgrounds.

by Liam Verster

Vernon council approves mid-level tax hike

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