One night after council asked Chatham-Kent administration for a 0% tax increase budget option, administration delivered. The only problem was councillors did not like what they heard.
Administration initially recommended a budget with a 2.4% tax increase, representing more than $3 million in new revenue. But on Monday, council asked staff to come back the next day with an option for a 0% increase.
Under that option, council would have had to revisit 2013 and 2014 municipal service review demons of the previous council. Staff had put $600,000 in 2014 service review recommendations council discarded last year, and jammed another $1.16 million in recommendations from 2013 in there as well.
Included in the 2013 service review recommendations were such things as closing the Sydenham Pool in Wallaceburg; laying off two firefighters; closing volunteer fire stations in Erieau, Raleigh South, Chatham North and Merlin; closing library branches in Highgate, Merlin, and Bothwell; cutting dog tag enforcement; reducing sidewalk snow clearing in Chatham and Blenheim; cutting the number of summer students; reducing the hours of the Blenheim Emergency Response Unit; and eliminating roadside weed spraying.
Gerry Wolting, general manager of corporate services, said revisiting these items was a better option than pulling money out of other budget areas, such as infrastructure, which would only delay and compound funding issues.
“As tough as those decisions are now, if you can make those decisions, at least that money has been allocated permanently. Otherwise, you are just putting the problem off to next year’s council or next term’s council,” Wolting said.
Council, led by West Kent Coun. Bryon Fluker and Wallaceburg Coun. Jeff Wesley did not want to even consider digesting the 2013 service review items.
“To go out to the public meetings with this 2013 list, with some of the items on here, I just don’t want to do that,” Fluker said.
“I will not, for the sake of possibly polarizing the communities, mention what is on that list,” Wesley said. “There is a very good reason why all of those items were rejected in 2013 – because it would have a devastating effect on those communities.”
Wesley and Fluker combined to craft a motion to pull the “three-page list” as Fluker called it, but allowed councillors to bring up items individually over the budget process if they so wished.
The motion passed without opposition.
Wolting said administration in no way recommended the cuts they put forward in the 0% option.
“We’re recommending to get to 2.4%. We’re presenting options to get from 2.4% to 0%,” he said. “Please don’t take this as fear mongering or scare tactics. We’re paid to present options and outline the ramifications of those options.”
Wolting said he’d prefer other means of achieving 0%.
“Hopefully we’ve missed something and councillors have ideas too,” he added.
Chatham Coun. Derek Robertson, the budget chair, agreed with Tuesday’s motion to scrap the 2013 service review recommendations, but challenged councillors to offer tangible cost-cutting alternatives.
“We don’t need to look at this ugly list. We don’t need to threaten the community,” he said. “We need to own the budget. We need to be the ones accountable to taxpayers. The process is sound. It’s up to us to deliver the results.”
Robertson said his experience with previous municipal budgets is that only a few councillors have offered viable suggestions, and it’s time for all of council to step up and “bring the solutions.”
The proposed 2.4% budget did drop by 0.2% before council even broke out the carving knifes. The majority of the savings comes as a result of administration anticipating the rate of inflation at 2.4% when in reality it came in at 2%, Wolting said. That resulted in $210,000 in reduced costs, a savings of 0.16%.
Add in $50,000 in increased assessment for new wind turbines, and you get the 0.2% drop in the proposed budget increase.
Council and administration went into closed session to end the evening to discuss $822,000 in wages that, if cut, would result in a savings of 0.61%.
“It would not be a good thing strategically to implement,” Wolting cautioned.
Budget facts
- 49% of the $284 million 2014 budget came from the local tax base. The remainder came from the provincial and federal governments, user fees, fines and penalties.
- Residential taxes accounted for 69% of 2014 taxes, while commercial made up 20%, farm 6% and industrial 5%.
- 43% of municipal expenses are due to employee-related costs.
- The average home in Chatham-Kent assessed at a value of $160,000 and has property taxes of $2,674 a year on it.
- Assessment grew last year to the tune of $1.5 million, with $535,000 of that coming from new wind turbines, 140 to be exact.
- A 1% reduction in the budget equates to $1.35M in required cuts.
Next steps
- The public consultation process is next for the budget. They take place Jan. 27 at the Dresden Arena, Jan. 28 at St. Michael’s Parish Hall in Ridgetown, and Jan. 29 at the Active Lifestyle Centre in Chatham. All open houses run from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.
- Council reconvenes to tackle the budget Feb. 3-5 and 10-12 at 6 p.m. in council chambers.
