Two Puslinch councillors again lobbied for reconsideration of the township’s 2010 budget last week, saying taxpayers are incensed about the 12% tax rate increase this year.
Councillors Dick Visser and Susan Fielding, who last month unsuccessfully made the same request, said council needs to revisit the budget, which was originally passed on May 19.
Visser said there is now $500,000 sitting in a recreation reserve, and after other deductions, the account will sit at $400,000.
He suggested using $225,000 of that money to cover a portion of the new multi-use recreational facility (MURF) in Aberfoyle, which would lower the tax rate increase by 8% and still leave the reserve with a balance of $175,000.
“It just makes sense,” Visser said of his proposal.
Fielding agreed, and said “in hindsight” a 12% tax rate increase is unacceptable. Fielding and Visser, who both voted in favour of the budget, said they have received dozens of complaints from residents angry about the 2010 budget, which also included a 24% increase in the tax levy.
But Clerk Brenda Law explained “It’s just not an option” for council to lower its tax rate now, after it has already been “frozen” at the county level.
“We just can’t go in there and change our budget and change our tax rate,” Law said. “It’s a done deal.”
Mayor Brad Whitcombe said municipalities face increasingly difficult financial challenges every year that were compounded by things like the Walkerton tragedy in 2000 and the “common sense revolution” – Premier Mike Harris and his Conservative government’s program of deficit reduction, lowering taxes and cutting some government programs – in the mid to late 1990s.
The mayor said it is “responsible management” to maintain healthy reserves and yet also get things done in the township. He also stressed that blaming rising costs on the MURF is unfair.
“It’s not the MURF; it’s a growing community that has demands and expectations,” said Whitcombe.
He concluded by saying he too pays a lot of taxes, including on a commercial business, but he knows where his money goes and realizes the value of those tax dollars.
Councillor Matthew Bulmer pointed out the reserve account to which Visser referred was just recently topped up with funds from a residential development, and council could not have spent reserves that did not exist at the time the budget was passed.
The facts
Also at the July 7 meeting, councillors were presented with a two-page report consisting of various tables outlining the overall effect of the budget on local tax bills.
Councillor Don?McKay, who requested specific examples of tax bills for various assessed properties, pointed out that just because the tax rate is up 12% doesn’t mean taxpayers will be paying 12% more overall.
In fact, McKay stressed, the overall tax rate is down 1.2% this year.
Law has also made similar assertions recently, and one table on the report last week showed that despite the township tax rate increase of 12%, total taxes payable will increase between 2.6% to 8.5% for homes ranging in value from $293,500 to $749,500 (2010 values) and using various assessment increases.
But those figures, as well as the overall tax rate decrease of 1.2%, are the result of a 3.4% decrease in the county tax rate and a 4.4% decrease in the education rate. Together those taxes make up about 82% of the overall tax bill, with the township’s portion coming in at 18%.
For a Puslinch home assessed at $350,000 last year, the owner would have paid $4,078 in total taxes in 2009 and $4,231 this year (using a 5% assessment increase, which means the home would be assessed at $367,500 this year). That represents an increase of just under 3.8%.
However, these figures – and the ones included in the July 7 township report – ignore the actual increase in the township’s portion of the overall tax bill.
For the same home, township taxes would have risen 17.7% – from $633 in 2009 to $746 this year – as a result of the township tax rate increase and the assessment increase.
For the various examples listed in the township report, the increase in township taxes would range between 16.4 and 23%.
