By paNOW

Regina reduces proposed property tax increase to 5.88%

Feb 25, 2014 | 12:00 AM

City council has managed to shave a little bit off a proposed seven per cent property tax increase, despite calls from more than a dozen people asking for more and different spending.

A special budget meeting was held at City Hall Monday evening. After some last-minute maneuvers by councillors, the proposed tax hike was brought down to 5.88 per cent. Combined with an eight per cent increase in water and sewer utility rates, that means an average household will have to pay roughly $240 more a year.

While councillors heard from more than a dozen presenters in chambers, it was the calls and conversations they had in the last three weeks outside City Hall that swayed them. Several councillors insisted that their constituents had pushed them hard to reduce the proposed increase.

“Bit of a sticker shock, a bit strong, a bit too quick on it,” said Mayor Michael Fougere after the meeting, characterizing people’s reaction to the initial plan. “They told us seven per cent is a lot. Council said, ‘We agree with you,’ and we made some changes accordingly that didn’t take away from the fabric of the discussion.”

Coun.Terry Hincks insisted people in his north west Regina ward—from seniors on fixed incomes to contractors to Chamber of Commerce members—had reached out to express their displeasure.

SIGA

SIGA and Northern Lights Casino main sponsors of the 31st PAGC Fine Arts Festival

11h ago

Workplace incident

City of Prince Albert pleads guilty to workplace safety violation, handed fines

13h ago

ACAC bound

North Stars' Medernach talks commitment to NAIT Ooks

16h ago

UNCHARACTERISTIC CHANGES

Four councillors eventually made official motions to try and hold the line as much as possible.

The largest of those moves was made by Sharron Bryce, who proposed that half of the city’s projected $2 million surplus for the 2013 budget year go towards lowering the mill rate. Normally a surplus would be put directly into the city’s General Fund Reserve to be used for unforseen expenses in the future.

Dr. Barbara Young suggested a $400,000 bylaw review that city staff had planned as part of the 25-year Official Community Plan could be put off until 2015. City manager Glen Davies admitted that there was a possibility that staff wouldn’t have been able to finish it anyway, due to administration having a heavier workload than ever before.

The most controversial item was a $500,000 cut that Bob Hawkins sought to make to the city’s “professional and external services” allocation. That money, used primarily for hiring outside consulting firms, is set to increase by nearly 35 per cent this year to $20.6 million. Hawkins felt the city could live with a half million dollars less.

“If we can show the citizens that we’ve worked on (the revenue) side by also working on our expenditure side then it will help this budget be accepted by the population,” he insisted when presenting the motion.

Davies took exception, warning that a lot of that money typically goes to engineering consultants who work on significant projects.

“Consulting comes to the municipality for either capacity reasons, expertise or objectivity … But (this cut) may well impact the ability for us to have projects complete and on-time. That’s the risk.”

He said it was impossible to know what the exact impact would be, saying the city would have to work through the change on a project-to-project basis, identifying priorities as it moves through the year.

Two councillors voted against that notion.

“Obviously there’s always a want for us as a councillor to cut taxes but the question is what are the impacts of that, and it’s hard to fully understand what those impacts are when (changes) just sort of happen at a meeting like this,” said Shawn Fraser.

Like Fraser, Coun. Mike O’Donnell also worried that council was making spur-of-the-moment cuts to a budget that city staff had been working on for months. He felt that making those changes could have ripple effects that no one can predict.

“I’m not very good at, ‘Let’s just knock some money off here and everything will be fine,’” he insisted. “I don’t accept that.”

NO SHORTAGE OF OPINIONS

More than a dozen people appeared before council, making 18 presentations on the three sections of the annual budget and some related spending items. That extended the meeting nearly seven hours into early Tuesday morning. Business lobby groups called for lower tax rates and cuts to the civil service, but other groups and average citizens only seemed to want to offer advice on how to spend.

Several presenters, including a group from the University of Regina, called on the city to invest more into transit to improve service and allow for more frequent trips. John Klein, a former city council candidate, criticized the city’s record on climate change and insisted substantive changes need to be made to modernize the city’s bus fleet and make routes more effective.

The Bike Regina group expressed concern that no money had been budgeted for bicycle infrastructure, though representatives said they hoped to see more work done in the future.

One presenter, North Central resident and former city council candidate Colin Stewart, admitted that there are improvements he would like to see made in Regina but ultimately admitted he had no problem with the proposed increase.

Former mayoral candidate Chad Novak suggested that tens of millions of dollars could be scrubbed from the Regina Police Service and Fire and Protective Services budgets in order to better fund other services and keep the tax increase down.

JURISDICTION STILL AN ISSUE

While the province has ironed out its problems with the RM Of Sherwood in recent months, its funding mechanisms are still creating friction when it comes to the provincial and federal governments.

The reduced amount of money coming via the province’s revenue sharing agreement was raised numerous times (the number, which is tied to the PST revenues in Saskatchewan, was adjusted downward this year due to a “recalculation” in how it’s spread out among municipalities). Councillors also sparred on another provincially-created program: paratransit.

“I think there actually is a real crisis there,” Fraser insisted to reporters after the meeting. He said eight per cent of all calls to the paratransit service go unanswered. He says that’s unacceptable.

Fraser introduced a motion on the subject, insisting all it takes to fix it is money. Citing city staff data, he said that paratransit could fully serve customers for less than a million dollars more per year. He suggested the City should commit to buying one new paratransit bus on the condition that the city buy three this year.

“My motion tonight was hopeful that it would sort of expediate that process because it’s happening today—people missed calls. Tomorrow people will miss their calls.”

The move was cried down by some fellow councillors, who said the province shouldn’t be backed into a corner and that on-going talks would prove more successful. But Fougere acknowledges that the support from the government has slipped.

“They would pay 50 per cent of the capital (costs) and 75 per cent of the operating. They have not achieved that in many, many years.”

Fougere dismissed the idea that the city needs to step up and fund the program on its own, insisting there’s a line drawn in the sand.

“We have had downloading from senior governments of other programs and we simply cannot afford to do that. I’m not prepared to put in what could be millions of dollars and have the province walk away from its obligations.”

Fougere acknowledges, however, that the province hasn’t been responding to requests for it to restore the funding for the program it created. After making a request in the last year, Fougere says the city was told to use the revenue sharing funds to run pay for the program.

news@panow.com

On Twitter: @princealbertnow