Council tries to ‘trim the tree’ and endorses 4.91 per cent tax increase

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Council spent an entire morning trying to trim the tax rate which at one point was projected at 5.03 per cent.

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“ I think this is too high, I think we need to do some trimming, A lot of suggestions have been made by other councillors, one was to cut back on the 1.9 to 1.5 [Infrastructure levy] and continue with the five years instead, one was to slice off some of the core budget and I think we have to start exploring some of these” said Coun. Anderson.

While many agreed that the 5.03 per cent rate was too high, Mayor Victor Cumming said he would not budge at lowering the infrastructure levy and argued that it would pay off overtime.

“I will argue for a long , long , time on the 1.9. I do not think we should touch the 1.9. All we are doing there is trying to catch up. If some of you are in council in five years time, you’ll have a very good day because we may have catched up, and for the very first time we would be able to say, ‘Wow our depreciation is matching our annual infrastructure replacement’.” Cumming said.

To strategically trim the tax rate, Coun. Brian Quiring put forward a motion to take $50,000 out of the casino reserve fund instead of the operating budget to provide grant funding for O’Keefe Ranch. The move provides the O’Keefe Ranch with the same amount of funds, but relinquishes money back into the operating budget. The motion passed which reduced the projected tax rate to its current 4.91 per cent.

Following the approved motion, Coun. Gares said she would like to see the tax rate reduced further and suggested cuts to employee training costs from $75,000 to $50,000. The idea was supported by Coun. Anderson, but CAO Will Pearce argued it would have a significant impact on city staff.

“Once you start to trim things like training, core training that builds capacity within your administration, I have to say you are undermining our ability to maintain a high-performance organization,” he said.

Coun. Brian Quiring agreed and said its important to look at options in the budget that don’t impact staff.

“We can’t spend $100,000 on a recruiter and then take away training. The staff retention is an issue and to me it’s a package. Will said that it’s $200 an employee. I know what I spend on training and its way more,” Quiring said.

Nixing a $32,000 radio ad campaign was also a hot topic for debate but city staff said that it wouldn’t impact the tax rate because it is a one-time expense.

“You can’t buy down taxation with one-time dollars. We did this a couple of years ago and we went into the next years budget in deficit of almost 2 per cent,” explained Patti Bridal, director of corporate services.

After picking and prodding at the budget for nearly two full days, Council came to a resolution Tuesday afternoon.

“There’s nothing on this list that I would want to take off which essentially tells me that I’m okay with 4.91, or 4.84 per cent if we do what we are thinking about doing on Monday,” said Coun. Quiring.

“I think we’ve shaken this thing as far as we can shake it,” he added.

But one councillor wasn’t sold.

“I’ll support it but I think there is an opportunity to take a long hard look at this budget and bring it down some more,” Coun. Anderson said.