Editor's Note -- this week's Quesnel City Council column is written by Quesnel Mayor Bob Simpson. He can be reached via email here
It's budget time again, and Council’s Finance Committee has been working hard to put a budget framework together for the next four years and deliver a draft operating budget to Council for 2020. It’s not an easy task, given the public’s expectations for quality service delivery and improvements in key areas like public safety, waste management, and snow removal.
Just to maintain programs and services at 2019 levels, Council needs to cover inflation, and, as every household knows, things are definitely not getting cheaper. Fuel costs; equipment parts, replacement, and maintenance; wages and contract fees; and supplies and material costs are all going up. This inflationary pressure is compounded by the need to address mandatory changes in standards, such as changes in workplace safety regulations, and emerging issues, like the need to address cyber-security concerns.
A tax increase of about $20 for the average household over 2019 rates will be needed to just cover these inflationary and unavoidable cost increases. This represents about 30% of the total proposed tax increase for 2020.
The Finance Committee also took into consideration the feedback received from the public in both the 2019 and 2020 budget survey. The main concern of the public expressed in these two surveys was public safety, and respondents sent a clear message to Council that they wanted to see increased RCMP and Bylaw capacity to deal with this concern without compromising other programs and services.
A tax increase of about $24 for the average household is needed to cover the additional policing and bylaw staffing costs. This represents about 37% of the total proposed tax increase for 2020.
The biggest vulnerability in the City budget is the annual cost for snow removal. Quesnel has very high standards for our snow removal program and our road and sidewalk clearing program is superior to most communities. However, climate change is dramatically impacting our ability to deal with snow and ice in the winter months and costs are increasing year over year.
To address this budget vulnerability, the Finance Committee recommended to Council that the City establish a snow reserve through a specific targeted tax function to buffer the costs of snow removal year over year. In addition, the Committee recommended an enhancement to our current end of driveway clearing program with the addition of driveway clearing when City crews are maintaining winter roads between snow falls and they create ice piles at the end of driveways.
A tax increase of $11 for the average household is needed to cover these incremental snow removal costs, or about 17% of the total proposed tax increase.
Like most communities, we need to start addressing climate change on all fronts and we’re fortunate to have a grant funded climate change planner on staff assisting us with the necessary task of creating a climate change adaptation and mitigation strategy. In advance of this strategy being presented to Council and the public, the Finance Committee has, by Council resolution, recommended a tax increase of about $2 for the average household for the City’s carbon reserve, about 3% of the total proposed tax increase.
The remainder of the proposed $65 tax increase for the average household in 2020, or about $8, is needed to cover costs associated with improvements in our IT Department (Information Technology), implement webcasting of Council meetings, add GPS technology to our mobile equipment to improve fleet management, and continue with our community marketing and branding strategies.
As I’ve noted many times before, there’s no better value for your dollar than property taxes. Many residents pay more each year for their cell phones, or coffee and fast food, than they pay in property taxes, for which they get a broad range of services and programs that are essential to maintaining a resilient, sustainable community.
No comments:
Post a Comment