milton tax increases

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 .

What do you think they think of

Mike Cluett

Yesterdays economic news was just as bad as the days before, maybe even worse.  Canada’s unemployment rate is now at 6.3% up from 6.2 in October.  The country had lost over 55,000 jobs with a majority of those being from Ontario’s manufacturing industry.  Companies seem to be lined up with the press releases on the numbers of jobs they have or will cut before the end of the year.

The BIG 3 are in the US begging for money and will soon be rattling their tin cans on the street corner here in Canada for their share of the “bailout” money that seems to be inevitable with the upcoming federal budget.

And then you hear stories like this….

Glass wall to cost $1 million

Tim Foran, Canadian Champion Staff
Published on Dec 05, 2008
The Town of Milton is paying close to $1 million to import and install a two-storey high structural glass wall from England as the crowning achievement to its $24 million Town Hall expansion, the Champion has learned.

And as the current expansion winds down, the Town is now in the midst of planning the second phase — a $23 million addition to the top of Town Hall in 2015 to cope with the demands of the growing municipality.

“This is just another kick,” Milton resident Bob Beyette complained of the imported glass wall. “With what’s going on in the world today…I’m not very happy.”

Beyette had appealed unsuccessfully to town council in early 2006 to postpone the current expansion, at the time the design was approved. Other residents complained at the time that a list of itemized costs for the expansion wasn’t available.

The Town’s director of community services, Jennifer Reynolds, said the English glass will serve as a structural wall to connect the historic Town Hall to its 50,000-square-foot addition.

“It’s a system that is unique to a few suppliers and that’s why it came from England,” said Reynolds.

“It was one of the design elements that the architects wished to use in the building — transparency and clarity related to democracy and local government and that kind of thing.”

Milton Mayor Gord Krantz acknowledged that some residents might find the imported glass wall “extravagant.” He noted residents had also expressed concern in the past about the extra costs associated with the stone facade on the new expansion, but that it was important for the new building to fit in with the historic structure.

“We could’ve put aluminum siding,” Krantz said.

Regional Councillor Colin Best, who had previously questioned the necessity of the current expansion, said the second phase of the expansion “doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“You don’t see people adding additions to Queens Park,” he said.

The second phase of the Town Hall expansion was originally scheduled to start in 2013. However, the Town’s proposed 2009 budget, which will be discussed at a public council meeting Monday evening, reveals staff are recommending the 50,000-square-foot addition be pushed back until 2015.

Once the current expansion is completed in early 2009, staff working at another Town-owned building on Industrial Drive will be able to move into their new home. The two-phase expansion to the Town Hall has been designed to allow the majority of Town staff to work under one roof.

The expansions are necessary to accommodate the increasing amount of employees hired to help run the rapidly-expanding population of Milton, said staff.

About half of the expansion is paid for by capital provision reserves, money that came from developers as part of financial agreements made between the Town and developers during the Bristol and Sherwood secondary planning processes. The Town can’t put the full cost onto developers, however, as the Province’s Development Charges Act doesn’t require developers to pay the capital costs for expansion of municipal administration headquarters.

Tim Foran can be reached at tforan@miltoncanadianchampion.com

This is coupled with the Region of Halton’s recent announcement of their pay increase/tax increase.  Who will stop the madness.

Now before I get pigeonholed into a corner, I am one who beleives that we should expand Milton Town Hall.  The population of Milton has got to be over 80,000 by now and climbing and there are about 3 different buildings town staff work from around town.  I also agree that the Town Hall can be almost like a “crown jewel”  … the centre point from where everything comes  from … from the heart of Downtown Milton outwards.

I do however agreet that we can put the second phase on hold given the current economic environment we all find ourselves in.  It can always be finished at a later date.  Just as its happened in the past, a bad economy will get better.  The markets will rise again, companies will begin to hire again, and oil will go back up, the dollar will improve and people will buy houses again.  It does get better.

The timing is crucial because we are now faced with a global recession unlike those in the past.  We dont know if it will last only a year or two or three.  That part is totally unknown.

What I am confident is that it will get better.  Thats why I can say the phase 2 of the expansion can and should be put on hold and this million dollar wall decision has to be looked at in detail.  Who brought it forward?  Who on council approved such a lavish expense.  They cant use the excuse, well town staff recommended it and we approved it.  Thats not leadership.  Voters deserve better.  A lot better.

I dont know, it really doesnt make sense to me and you have to think to yourself, what where they thinking when they made that decision?

Didnt anyone on town council stand up and say “Excuse me?  A MILLION Dollars for a glass wall?”

I think we know the answer.