hospital tax levy

Milton Canadian Champion Reports On Possible 4.41 % Increase

Mike Cluett

Here is the Champions take on the meeting last Monday. When the title says taxes could rise by 4.4%, it means that staff has assessed current services already provided combined with the MPI (Municipal Price Index) could result in a budget increase of 4.4%

This total doesnt include new services that will be debated throughout the year and at budget time by the budget committee/council.

Some of the other items I brought up at the meeting was a request to staff to not only consider the MPI, but also to take into consideration the CPI, inflation etc that is being projected for the next year as well.  The US economy isnt moving forward (in fact in some cases seems to be moving backwards) fast enough and could easily slip into a further recession putting extreme pressures on our economy as well.

There are way too many factors in play to consider Canada’s economy and local economy’s out of the woods yet.  This is why we have to tread carefully in our 2012 budget process and keep taxpayers in mind with potential budget increases and the effects on their pocketbooks.

I also confirmed with staff during the meeting that the hospital tax levy installed on your 2011 tax bill IS included in that amount.  Should the budget committee and in turn town council decide to remove the levy from the tax bill and find other sources of funding for the hospital expansion fund, the overall increase in current services will be lower.

Its important that taxpayers know of all the options available to council during this process and send their input to their respective councillor.  This measure passed with no public input whatsover during the 2011 budget debate and I, along with a number of my collegues heard from you.  Some supported the measure and many opposed it.  The common theme I heard from taxpayers was they were not told about it and they voiced their displeasure.  As reported in the survey 40% of respondents supported the levy (actual number 71) while 38% opposed (actual number 68) leaving 21% (actual number 37) unsure, it by no measure is a mandate for council to continue this levy without extensive feedback from the community.

You will see at the end of the article, an announcement of the informal budget input session slated for Monday July 11th at Milton Sports Centre (Room 4) starting at 7pm.  If you cant make it, please email me your comments, questions and concerns to mike@mikecluett.ca

http://www.insidehalton.com/community/milton/article/1033206

Taxes could rise by 4%

Christina Commisso, Milton Canadian Champin

A 4 per cent tax hike, but no increased services.

That’s the gist of the budget call report presented to the Town’s administration and planning committee Monday.

Town staff have estimated a 4.41 per cent tax hike is needed next year to maintain existing service levels in town.

The report aims to provide guidelines and direction for preparing next year’s budget, and if this week’s meeting was a preview of things to come, the 2012 budget deliberations could be heated.

The first question posed to Town Treasurer Linda Leeds following her short presentation was what the impact of removing the 1 per cent hospital levy, introduced in the 2011 budget, would have.

“The hospital tax levy was a pretty contentious issue,” said Ward 6 Councillor Mike Cluett.

He was one of five councillors who voted against the levy, which narrowly passed by a 6-5 vote in January.

Leeds said the report assumes the 1 per cent levy would continue in 2012 and it wouldn’t result in a tax increase. She said if the hospital tax wasn’t carried forward, it would result in a tax decrease.

Councillor Cindy Lunau quickly reminded those in attendance that funding the local share of the Milton District Hospital expansion, when it’s approved by the Province, is a reality council will have to one day deal with.

“To remove the hospital levy would result in a decrease in the overall tax rate, but we certainly had comments around this table that there’s nothing more important we should be putting our tax money towards than the hospital…As we get to that point, let us hope we have some idea where the money for the hospital will be coming from.”

Added Councillor Rick Di Lorenzo, “I can go down the list and if we remove everything we added last year, every program and service, that would also mean the tax increase would be lower than 4.41 per cent,” he said.

Councillor Sharon Barkley reminded council members the point of the report is to provide Town staff with budget direction, “and I’m not sure if we’re doing that,” she said. She asked Leeds what a 4 per cent increase in municipal taxes would mean on her tax bill. As the Milton share of the property tax bill represents 29 per cent of the total, Leeds said a 4 per cent local increase would have a 1 to 1.2 per cent impact on the total tax bill.

The report points to the Main Street grade separation and construction of the new Milton fire headquarters at Derry Road and Savoline Boulevard as the two highest-priority items on the 2012 capital budget.

The projects, slated for completion next year, are estimated to cost $18.4 million and $2.9 million respectively in 2012 and $35.6 million and $5.2 million in total.

Staff included comments on a budget survey — available on the Town’s website until the end of August — in the report.

Of the close to 200 responses received so far, the majority said they’re satisfied with the current level of service the Town provides and 72 per cent said there are no new services or programs that could be offered.

For new services or to increase existing service levels, 40 per cent of respondents don’t support a tax increase, 38 per cent do support an increase and the remainder of respondents were unsure.

The survey asked about support for the hospital levy — 40 per cent were in favour of the tax, 39 per cent weren’t in favour and 21 per cent were unsure.

Hosted by councillors Zeeshan Hamid, Cluett, Barkley and Di Lorenzo, an informal budget input session is set for July 11 at the Milton Sports Centre (Room 4) at 7 p.m.

Feedback About 1% Tax Levy

Mike Cluett

From The Milton Canadian Champion – Letters to the Editor

Hospital levy should be rescinded; taxpayers engaged in discussion

Dear Editor:I read with interest the article in the January 20 Champion entitled ‘Hospital levy increases tax hike by 1%.’

Reporter Christina Commisso wrote that in a 6-5 vote Milton council approved a 3.58 per cent tax increase, plus an unprecedented 1 per cent tax surcharge to help fund the possible future expansion of Milton District Hospital.

Any 6-5 decision is a bad decision, and this one is no exception.

It’s little wonder that Mayor Gord Krantz and councillors Mike Cluett, Tony Lambert, Greg Nelson and Rick Malboeuf didn’t support the 2011 budget. The 4.58 per cent tax hike is more than twice the 2 per cent inflation rate estimated for 2011 by the Bank of Canada. The 2010 inflation rate was 1.7 per cent.

Worse, monies will be set aside for a hospital expansion that isn’t even in the Province of Ontario’s current health infrastructure plan.

Our community’s ability to absorb a 3.58 per cent tax hike, let alone a 4.58 per cent tax increase with a hospital surcharge, is doubtful.

We’re in tough economic times and seniors on fixed incomes, young families with mortgages and local manufacturers and retailers that create jobs and drive municipal assessment revenues are all at risk.

Very few will see business revenues or personal incomes rise 3.58 or 4.58 per cent this year.

A re-do is in order.

Re-open the operating budget and reduce it to inflationary levels.

It’s time to rescind the unprecedented hospital surcharge and engage taxpayers in an open discussion about its future.

Council should also request Queen’s Park to immediately include the hospital expansion in its health infrastructure planning and require  it be funded through a public-private partnership, rather than using municipal property taxes.

John Challinor, Milton

Also…

Hospital tax levy tough to swallow

Dear Editor:This letter is in response to the 1 per cent tax levy approved by council for the hospital expansion.

At the time of planning for growth, where on the list of priorities was the expansion of Milton District Hospital? This should have been a top priority. How is the hospital supposed to cope with this new growth?

We already pay taxes to the Province for hospitals. Could money the Town gets from the Mohawk slots not go toward the hospital fund?

To me, there has been some poor planning shown by our governments.

Cecilia Thorpe, Milton

Council to Debate Hospital Tax Levy

Mike Cluett

From the Milton Canadian Champion May 20, 2010 By Tim Foran

Councillors to debate hospital tax levy

Milton council will debate whether to provide cash, perhaps through a dedicated tax levy, to assist Halton Healthcare Services Corporation’s as yet unapproved plans to expand Milton District Hospital.

At Monday’s council session, Ward 3 Councillor Cindy Lunau introduced a notice of motion, which Ward 4 Councillor Paul Scherer indicated he would second, stating the Town would “endeavour” to help HHS cover its share of the costs to redevelop the half-century-old hospital, which hasn’t undergone a major expansion since the mid-1980s.

The motion states the Town would research and identify potential funding mechanisms including the possibility of including a special property tax levy beginning next year.  Council will debate and vote on the motion at the June 28 council session. Lunau said she wanted the long lead time for the community to have an opportunity to provide feedback and plan to attend the session.

Under Provincial funding guidelines that began in June, 2006, Ontario pays for all of the planning costs and 90 per cent of the bricks and mortar for hospital capital projects. Previously, most capital cost share rates varied from 50 to 80 per cent depending on the project, the Province stated at the time.

However, the hospital corporation is still responsible for the remaining 10 per cent of construction costs along with covering the full cost of building revenue-generating facilities such as cafeterias, retail areas and parking lots as well as the medical equipment inside the hospital.

In total, depending on the equipment a hospital needs, that means the Province will cover around 70 per cent of the total project costs, with the hospital corporation paying the remaining portion, dubbed the local share.

The hospital has three ways to pay that local share: its own revenues from, for example, parking lot fees or stores; fundraising done by the Milton District Hospital Foundation; and through financial assistance from municipalities.

The problem Milton council tried to wrap its head around Monday is that HHS won’t provide the municipality with an estimate right now of how much money it would need.  “At the end of the day, if we put too much (money) away, that’s fine,” Scherer said to HHS President John Oliver during Monday’s council session.  “But we need a starting point.”

Oliver said he understood council’s frustration but he doesn’t want to float a dollar figure that would inevitably turn out to be wrong years later after more detailed planning has taken place.

The hospital provided a preliminary cost estimate when it presented its business case for the expansion to the Ministry of Health in September, 2008 but Oliver said after the council meeting that number is already out of date and he doesn’t wish to release it.

“It’s not just inflation, the original size and scope has evolved from the original business case,” he explained. He said he also doesn’t want to jeopardize a competitive bidding process by leaking expected total costs.

However, Oliver did provide council with a benchmark for comparison when he said the redevelopment planned for Milton’s hospital is at least as big as the one proposed for Burlington’s Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital. The first phase of the redevelopment of Jo Brant is projected to cost $312 million, with the local share pegged at $120 million. In December, Burlington’s city council committed to covering half of that cost, or $60 million, and has already started a dedicated property tax levy this year. The City of Vaughan last year committed $80 million to a proposed new hospital for its community. Both projects are also unapproved and are in competition with the Milton hospital expansion to get on the Province’s next 10-year list of infrastructure projects, to be released next year, likely as part of the 2011 budget.

However, the competition is not just among those three hospitals. The Ministry of Health is currently prioritizing at least 50 other proposed hospital projects before submitting its list of requests to the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, which will ultimately decide on the 10-year capital plan.

Other ministries are also prioritizing their own lists of proposed capital projects, one of which includes the proposed Wilfrid Laurier University campus in Milton. That prioritization is expected to take place over the next three months, said Jason Grier, a professional lobbyist from Hill and Knowlton working on behalf of HHS.

One of the things the Ministry of Health will be looking for during this time when prioritizing projects is whether the hospital corporation has a firm plan to meet its local share commitments, Grier said after council Monday.

“They don’t want to move forward on projects that aren’t going to have that local share commitment because then the project isn’t going to happen,” explained Grier, who served as executive assistant to George Smitherman when he was health minister in the provincial government.

Oliver told council it would help the hospital if the Town made a firm commitment of financial support. “I don’t know if you need to put a dollar figure behind it right now.”