melanie hennessey

Mayor Krantz to run in 2010

Mike Cluett

Its getting close to election time, as you can tell by many of the comments on  my blog the last few weeks.  Who is going to be running where and for what positions seems to be a hot topic.

With a new ward system in place, possible date change of the election and a number of other issues coming to the surface many people will be paying attention to the upcoming campaigns.  Nominations open in January for the open positions as there looks to be quite a few changes coming for Milton Town Council.

This week Mayor Gord Krantz answered the question in an article by Melanie Hennessey of the Milton Canadian Champion. 

 
 

Milton tax increase official

Mike Cluett

Last Monday night at Town Hall the 2010 captial and operating budgets were approved for a total increase in budget of 3.24%.

As Melanie Hennessey of the Champion outlines in her article today, it passed, but not unanimously.  Both Councillor Mike Boughton and Mayor Gord Krantz voted against the budget because the rate of increase was higher than the rate of inflation.

Good for them!

Mayor Krantz also outlined during the meeting that taxes have gone up about 17% in this term of council alone.  This amounts to roughly $120 per household in the last 4 years.  Although Jan Mowbray stated that Milton has something to show for those increases, the amount is still quite high over a 4 year term.

Jan mentioned that she voted for the budget regretably because it didnt include an increase to service for the new library to include Sunday hours.  Mea Culpa….my family uses that library quite often and is a wonderful place dont get me wrong.  Am I or other taxpayers willing to accept even more tax increases to pay for 7 day a week service?  Highly unlikely. 

Im sure if you had put the question to Miltonian’s BEFORE hand if they wanted a new arts and entertainment centre the answer might not have been what they were looking for.  That project was moved up in order to take advantage of the federal/provincial stimulus funding and rushed through.  There are quite a few better places in town for the centre, and Im quite sure that Thompson and Main isnt going to be the best location. 

Overall, I would concure with the Mayor and Councillor Boughton that this budget could have been better and that the rate of increase should have been closer to the rate of inflation.  As our town growns we need to prioritize our spending.  Would it be nice to have 7 day a week service for the library?  Absoultely.  It would be great if we could keep it open 24 hours.  Is it a priority right now?  No its not.  Maybe down the road when the rate of growth doesnt increase as much and there is more of a tax base available we can look at it then, but not right now.

There are a lot of “would like to have’s” in town.  We would like to have a lot of things, but there simply isnt enough money for everything that we want.  We as a town have to look at what is NEEDED and then prioritize those needs and focus on them.

Here’s the article… once again welcome back Melanie!

Council approves 3.24% tax hike

Melanie Hennessey, Canadian Champion Staff
December 16, 2009

Residents will dish out about $25 more for Town services next year now that Milton council has approved a 3.24 per cent tax hike for 2010.

The increase and the Town’s $149-million budget were given the go-ahead by council at its meeting Monday night. This translates into an extra $24.96 in Town taxes for urban residents and $20.82 for those in the rural area on a home assessed at $300,000.

Of the total budget, property taxes will cover between $28 and $29 million. Much of the municipality’s revenue is money collected from developers as well as funding provided by the provincial and federal governments.

About $70 million of the budget will cover next year’s operating expenses, while more than $78 million is slated for capital projects — the largest capital budget that’s ever been approved by council.

Funding has been allocated for 77 new projects, including $36 million in land and buildings, $32 million in roads and $5 million in parks and trails.

The capital program is being boosted by stimulus money coming from the upper levels of government. The Town has been approved for $33.5 million in stimulus cash, which allows it to advance five major projects that weren’t originally scheduled to start until 2011 or later. The projects include a new visual arts centre and central library and an expansion to the Milton Sports Centre. They must be built by March 31, 2011 under stimulus funding rules.

The budget was supported by the majority of council, with the exception of Ward 2 Councillor Mike Boughton and Mayor Gord Krantz.

Boughton told the Champion after the meeting that he voted against the budget because the tax increase for next year is above the rate of inflation.

“I stated earlier this year that I wouldn’t go any higher than the rate of inflation, and I’m standing by that principle,” he said.

Krantz, who has long been a supporter of keeping tax increases at the rate of inflation, shared similar sentiments. He also pointed out to council that it has increased local residents’ taxes by almost $120 in its term of office, or about 17 per cent.

“It’s very easy for us to say it’s only five or 10 cents more on this or that, but it builds up to $120,” he said. “That’s pretty huge, and it compounds itself.”

Ward 3 Councillor Jan Mowbray contended the extra $120 has helped with things like creating a branch library and hiring more full-time firefighters.

“We’ve got something to show for it,” she said.

Mowbray voted in favour of the budget, but with reservations, she said. The budget didn’t include extra library hours, which she said residents were calling for. “The public wants more for what their tax dollars are giving them.”

At last week’s budget committee meeting, councillors were presented with a proposed 2.98 per cent tax increase by staff. The committee voted to include an extra $70,000 in the operating budget for transit service enhancements, bringing the tax increase up to 3.24 per cent.

The transit improvements include a high school tripper program that’s catered to afternoon school bell times and higher frequency service levels on prime transit routes.

The committee also supported advancing construction of Louis St. Laurent Boulevard from Bronte Street to Regional Road 25 — work that wasn’t slated to get underway until 2011. It added about $6 million to the 2010 capital budget.

Motions to include the transit initiatives and the roadwork were made by Ward 4 councillors Wendy Schau and Paul Scherer respectively.

* * *

Top 5 projects

• Milton Sports Centre expansion — $12.7 million

• Arts and entertainment centre construction — $8.1 million

• Main Street grade separation at railroad tracks — $7.9 million

• Bronte Street reconstruction from Louis St. Laurent Boulevard to Derry Road — $6.4 million

• Louis St. Laurent Boulevard construction from Bronte Street to Regional Road 25 — $5.9 million.

Melanie Hennessey can be reached at mhennessey@miltoncanadianchampion.com .

Tax Increases Coming for Milton

Mike Cluett

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.