Just an FYI… according to reports today CPI rose to 2.4% in December. Rate of increase in town portion of budget spending was 3.58% (add in 1.0% levy) for 4.58%.
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2011/01/25/inflation-canada.html
Last night council continued its marathon discussions on the budget and other items almost until the wee hours of the morning. Since taking office we have yet to finish a meeting before 11pm. Tiring pace to say the least, but that’s why we were elected.
In addition to debating the 1% tax levy for hospital expansion, the meeting included a number of pubic sessions for input on future developments around town. One of the contentious items was looking at the zoning for the north side of Main Street near Thompson Road. Business owners made a pitch to council, of which some of it made sense, about allowing certain types of zoning for that area that will help them decrease their vacancy rates and have more businesses in town. They are right. This area is the new gateway to the community with the Milton Centre for the Arts and the Superstore at that intersection. The zoning that is being allowed is still quite flexible but staff and council still had concerns when it comes to the types of zoning and the potential parking issues that might arise. Its not a dead end for the business owners, as they can still apply for zoning changes. The big thing that had to be considered is the development of the Main Street underpass and what the area will look like in the future. Thats getting underway this year and next…hopefully it wont take too long. My personal opinion is that this underpass should have already been started so that when its complete it can compliment the Arts Centre. As it stands now, we might have some traffic issues from people on the west side of town coming towards that area using residential streets like Woodward, Nippising and Childs to get to the Arts Centre…but that’s a debate for another day.
After all the public meetings were complete, council moved to discuss “ITEM 18” from the budget which was the 1% tax levy for the hospital expansion. Many of the same arguments were brought up again both on the pro and against sides of the arguement so really nothing new was discussed. In the end, via a recorded vote, the results were the same.
In Favour of the 1% tax levy: Clr Di Lorenzo, Hamid, Best, Lunau, Barkley, Huffman.
Against the 1% tax levy: Clr Cluett, Nelson, Lambert, Malbouef and Mayor Krantz.
We could continue to debate this forever on the “how” we get the funding until sometime next year. The points that I made were simple. We needed to have public input on this item as we HAVE the opportunity to do so. Some have stated taxes only as a last resort, but I honestly don’t feel that we’re there yet. We have the time to garner input and support from the public on this and move forward in less of a fractured way. The Chief of Staff at MDH along with the COO of MDH made presentations last night in support as they feel a fund is “critical” towards getting approval from the province.
The original staff motion in this budget was to have $100,000 from the community fund (funded by slot revenues and not tax dollars) placed into the reserve fund as a deposit to get it going and show the province we’ve put hard dollars into place. The tax levy motion introduced by Councillor Lunau replaced that $100,000 with the 1% on taxpayers bills. That $100,000 was later put back into the community fund through a notice of motion from Councillor Huffman to start a “matching” program with Milton service clubs.
An interesting development occurred last night when the Town Clerk informed us that the wording of the motion went against the municipal act. You cant initiate a tax levy on just one taxpayer. It has to be included in everyone’s tax bills including commercial, industrial and retail taxpayers. This complicates the issue even more as many of the businesses in town (downtown Milton etc) are small businesses. I know many of these people and they find it quite difficult to stay afloat and now we have added an additional 1% to their tax bill as well. Again, without any consultation with the public whatsoever.
The reality is that the tax is here. I did my best to convince my colleagues that it wasn’t the right thing to do right now. We have more time and we should use it to get the job done right and involve the people in the decision making process. The job now is to work with residents to educate them on whats going on in this process with the province, and what we will have to do in the future to fund this hospital expansion fund….without going BACK into taxpayers pockets with this levy.
I’d like to thank everyone over the past week who has emailed, called or personally spoken with me on this issue. Some of us will disagree with what happened but an overwhelming number of you were in support of the public consultation process and wish we did more. I promise I will do my best in the coming weeks and months to help that process along so that way we don’t have any more surprises like this and we work together as a town and most importantly as a unified council to get the desired result. Only time will tell if it’ll work of if it does, we wont really know if by doing this it made the difference. Milton is in competition with about 55 other municipalities who are struggling to do the right thing as well. They are raising money…a lot more than we are.
The need is there for Milton. That’s not in doubt. I will continue to pressure local officials to help me in convincing the province to recognize Milton, Canada’s fastest growing municipality, is in dire need of expansion of any kind to help improve the quality of health care services in town. Whatever services our new hospital will have … we need something now.
Lets work together now to ensure that happens.
Mike, as you say, there are a large number of other communities asking for new/expanded hospitals and the province is in a massive deficit crunch.
One of my many concerns over this levy is, “what happens to the money raised” if the province comes down and nixes a new hospital?”.
Will the funds raised then be turned into a pet project fund for clr.Lunau and the other tax and spenders on council?
http://www.insidehalton.com/news/article/842497–town-to-help-fund-hospital-expansion
One of the people who supported this levy, Regional Councillor Colin Best commented during the discussions last time Councillor Lunau (then with Paul Scherer) wanted to put through a levy….Colin said that tax levy should be a last resort. He also mentioned during that meeting, agreeing with Councillor Barry Lee that slot revenues should be used to fund this reserve.
Funny how he voted against using slot revenues and voted FOR this levy at the first available opportunity.
Oh ya, I forgot…this was BEFORE the election and now its 4 years away from the next one.
Colin gets burned on this one.
You fought the good fight along with the other councillors who voted against it…thats all we can ask for.
Funny thing was that Cindy brought up at the meeting other towns are doing this, more specifically Burlington.
Ya, they raised a levy but the total budget increase for Burlington was 2.2%…INCLUDING the levy of 1% They trimmed the fat. Even funnier was the city of Burlington conducted a phone survey a few weeks before to … get this… find out what taxpayers thought.
They didnt introduce it at 11pm during a budget meeting. They didnt make backroom deals in order to get it passed. They did it right. How come these folks cant learn to do the same thing.
Mike,
The rate of inflation in Ontario is 3.3% according to the article you linked, not 2.4%. We are impacted by the cost of living in Ontario.
Paul M,
This specific question was asked and several councillors voting ‘for’ the levy were very clear that this would be returned. Milton did put a hospital levy during the last expansion that disappeared when the expansion finished.
‘interesting’,
Burlington comparison isn’t apples-to-apples. Their tax rate is significantly higher. 1% hospital levy in Burlington hits pocketbooks twice as hard as 1% hospital levy in Milton. Their levy is $4.28 / $100,000 of assessment per year. Ours is half that.
Zeeshan Hamid
We used to get silence. Now we get spin. Don’t know which is worse.
Agreed we are impacted by Ontario obviously when it comes to cost of living increases. Some reports have shown 3.0% to 3.3% (as was quoted in this article)
The rate of increase in the town portion of the budget was 3.58% and with the 1% tax levy for hospital expansion, the total is 4.58%.
The original intent of the motion was to approve the levy on residential homes but the Municipal Act states everyone must pay. This levy affects hundreds of small businesses in Milton as well. The impact of that is yet to be seen on business owners who are quite frankly suffering a bit due to the implementation of the HST and a very fragile economy. New taxes or increased taxes during this time in the economy isnt smart.