cindy lunau

UPDATE 2:58pm…

For the record folks, I love it when people post comments on the blog. It shows there’s an active interest in what I’ve got to say.

Normally I allow any post on here unless its spam.

I know the idea of tax increases isn’t the most popular topic and it usually meets with a more emotional response than let’s say what’s going on at town hall on New Years Eve.

What I won’t post is comments with excessive swearing or nasty personal attacks against anyone. I’ve deleted a few comments already today and will continue to do so. I love free speech but when you get nasty and personal against anyone, the comment goes.

I love constructive comments and keep them coming. Its good debate that will drive good policy in the future.

Thanks everyone! – Mike

Just before midnight last night, Milton Town Council approved the 2010 captial and operating budgets and will bring it to council on December 14th for ratification.

There are normally 2 days set aside for budget deliberations and the first session usually goes into the wee hours of the morning, but as budget chair Brian Penman said “we do our best work before 11pm”

I personally arrived after 9pm to a slightly empty gallery for the public which surprised me. I know sitting down and discussing capital projects and per centages of development charges isnt the most “exciting” way to spend a Monday night in Milton but judging from what people had told me about this years budget, I thought there would be more people attending.

Wondering aloud last night, I would really like to know what the cost would be to stream these budget and council meetings would be. The Region of Halton has the ability to stream its meetings and keep an archive as well. How much do you pay for bandwith right? Thats another story.

Getting back to the meeting, it seemed that very few had things to say about the contents of the capital budget with the exception of Paul Scherer, councillor for ward 4. As each division of the town got its say for how much money they requested, Paul had a few things to say about each of them. The biggest point he wanted to make was to move the project for expansion of Louis St Laurent from Bronte Street to Regional Road 25 up from 2011 to 2010. The few of us in the crowd chuckled with Paul asked “can we afford both” By both he was talking about the Main Street grading project that for several years now has been put on the back burner and postponed. These postponments have essentially increased the costs of the project and it needs to be done. Paul wanted to know if they could do both projects in 2010 instead of Main Street in 2010 and Louis St Laurent in 2011.

The gallery chuckled slightly after looking at a few spreadsheets on her computer, Linda Leeds, the treasurer calmy replied…”Yes!” The additional cost? $5.9 million.

This cost wouldnt be taken on by the taxpayer as projects like this are funded from development charges that are paid by builders, and not residential rate payers.

Colin Best, regional councilor, brought up some property issues near that intersection and wanted to wait until the town finalized ownership before moving ahead the project. There were some issues with Lower Base Line bridge a couple of years back where the project was approved but the town didnt own some property, therefore a bridge to nowhere.

In the end, the project will move forward. This means that residents who live on the west side of town by Bronte Street and Derry will have another outlet out of town instead of just Derry Road. With the underpass construction also moved up by the Region, it means that these two projects might be going on at the same time, handcuffing local residents.

What got more people involved in the budget discussion was the operating side of things. This is the budget that affects us as taxpayers, seeing how these items are funded by the property taxes we pay.

Town Staff had come in with a potential tax increase of 4.9% but were asked to see what can be removed/postponed to get to a “more reasonable” increase of 2.9%

Transit was a hot issue as usual. Paul Scherer said that he supported the idea of transit but right now its not working properly and questioned the additional expenditures. Councillors Wendy Schau stated that this type of investment in transit was vital to the growth in Milton. Especially our young children need to start using transit so “they will get used to it” as they get older. Councillor Jan Mowbray and Cindy Lunau also joined in with the support of the new routes, fare collection system as well as moving up new route designs for 2010. In a close vote, it passed and the new routes on the west side of town are a go ahead. There is also going to be an increase the in fares for a ride from $2.00 per ride to $2.50 and if you get ten ride tickets, it goes from $20 to 22 starting in the new year.

Library was another issue that got the discussion going as potential cuts to staff at the Beaty Branch and reduced hours were on the block for 2010. Jan Mowbray said it didnt make sense to open a library and then begin to cut the staff right away. Again, in a close vote the motions to keep the cuts stayed.

Those were the highlights and again, I wasnt there all night and didnt see Linda’s presentation to council of the budget. In the end the budget has been increased by 3.24% for 2010.

I dont envy the people in this process one bit. There are some hard decisions that have to be made in order to limit the impact on the taxypayer in Milton. I found Paul to be the most vocal when it came to asking questions of staff as to why these increases are needed and asked for other members of council to comment as well.

Here is the link to the Town of Milton’s budget page to see the links for 2010, 2009 and other budget documents.

On another point, it was nice to see Melanie Hennessey from the Milton Canadian Champion back in the press box after her time away with her son. Not that I didnt like Tim (because I do) but its good to see Melanie back! Look for her report on the budget in the Champion later this week.

As many of you know, its about this time of year when the Town of Milton council sits down and decides how much money they need to pay for the services they provide. Its also a well known fact that Milton has one of the lower tax rates in the GTA, which is what makes Milton a choice for many people to live.

Last week on December 10th and 11th, the council sat down to hammer out the town staffs proposal for the budget. What came out of it was rather shocking.

After “long deliberations” the council had decided on a 6.6% increase in our taxes for 2008. This means a homeowner with a property value of $ 300,000 will have an increase on their bill of over $45 for residential and roughly $37 for rural.

Keep in mind the rate of inflation is hovering at 2.5% for this year.

Why such a huge increase? In the articles linked below by the Milton Canadian Champion you will see the highlights (or low-lights if you so chose) of the budget deliberations on the 10th and 11th.

The budget initially had an increase of 4 full time firefighters for the Milton Fire Department but Ward 2 Councillor Greg Nelson made a case for just one more saying “Four says we got the message — five says we care.” A little on the dramatic side and it worked as the changes were approved.

While I am an avid supporter of the fire department, I feel that we have to be prudent in our spending. Things cant change overnight or else taxes will be double digit before long. With this change it added $46,000 to the budget. On the down side, council took out some much needed funds for our new fire chief. While we will now have one more firefighter, the department will be without its new chief until June of next year.

Coupled with the Region increasing taxes by 3.7%, we will now see some big changes on our tax bills in the coming year.

As quoted in the Champion article by Melanie Hennessey “The $27 million in the capital budget will be invested in 96 new projects, including $3.7 million in the new Town Hall, $2.5 million in the new library branch, $2.3 million in a fourth fire station and $1.4 million in a railway underpass on Main Street.”

What was even more upsetting is the lack of interest from Miltonians about the budget and its process. The Town of Milton had a plan in place on a number of occasions for public input on the budget over the past year for what the money should be spent on. During these budget debates on council, there were very few delegations to speak out on it. We all complain about taxes but never really take part in the process that leads up to these decisions.

I personally am NOT against tax increases. I am however in favour of keeping any tax increase in line with the rate of inflation. We have to continue to live within our means With the town growing as it is, it will be hard for this and future councils to make those decisions to keep taxes and spending down. I am also upset at the amount of the increase which is a full 4 per cent over the annual rate of inflation.

At that meeting Councillor Wendy Schau from Ward 4 wanted to add another full 2 per cent onto the budget to put $400,000 towards the town reserves, making the tax increase 8.8%.

Other councillors such as Jan Mowbray and Cindy Lunau, both from Ward 3 supported the increase. Wendy Schau called the full 2% increase “good sense” while Cindy Lunau called it a “wise investment”

Since when does a huge increase in taxes make “good sense?”

Mayor Gord Krantz ran a very efficient meeting of council on the 17th and suggested to councillors that if they feel that these increases are justified or if they wanted further changes to be made, that he would propose to open up budget talks again and silence was his answer. Lots of talk.

This years budget debate brought out the usual “grandstanding” that’s become a norm at this time of year while each councillor stands up and tries to justify why we should pay more money. While some of these major projects are needed to help the town grow, these decisions could have been made at other times saving us untold amounts of money.

Bad decisions in the past breed bad decisions in the future. My only worry is that now we’ve had such a large increase in taxes this year, it will only justify council next year to raise them even higher.

There wont be an election in Milton until 2010 so we should brace ourselves for further increases to come until that time.

Mike Cluett

Milton Town Budget Increasing by 3.24%

Tax Increases Coming for Milton