6% tax increase is too much
North Cowichan’s proposed six per cent tax increase is a canary in a coal mine telling us that a ball has been dropped in terms of financial planning and forecasting.
Either there is a lack of good financial forecasting or no one wants to make tough decisions about cuts to the budget, or both. Six per cent is too much for an annual tax increase.
When it comes to tax money, you can’t go down the proverbial grocery aisle, filling the taxation grocery cart from each tax payer, and continue adding to the cart. Sooner or later the cart gets full, and you need to take something out to be able to fit something new in.
Very seldom are things removed from municipal budgets, instead things are only added.
This is often what leads to significant political pendulum swings; when taxpayers become overwhelmed and feel desperate and react by making election decisions that purport to be the antidote but seldom are. These swings can actually be problematic.
We need a middle of the road approach, greater rigour in the deliberation of municipal budgets, and confidence that all line items are assessed as to their significance, relative to emergent needs.
Municipal council and staff need be careful not to become “budget blind” where budget line numbers lose their relative significance and meaning.
At the end of the day, you can’t just keep adding on more, and more and more.
In general, there are an endless supply of important and worthy things to fund. Council are regularly inundated with compelling requests for funding. It can be a huge challenge to navigate the body of “ask”.
Community frequently wants all of the gravy, but we don’t want to pay for it through our taxation.
Therefore, the middle road is a rigourous financial planning process that considers the removal of certain budget items. As well, the municipality as a whole, needs to do a better job of forecasting or looking at other income streams, instead of relying on taxation primarily.
Relying on taxation is the easy route. However, there is no reason why the municipality cannot explore creating more alternative income streams.
The community can’t afford everything it sees and wants and needs. Our budget keeps growing and growing but very little is done to re-examine the line items to ensure we still need them. Maybe something that was important five years ago, isn’t needed today relative to emergent needs.
What MNC needs is a detailed deep-dive, potentially led by an objective outsider to figure out, not how to add more things while minimizing impact, but rather what things can be removed with minimal impact.
Again, a six per cent tax increase is too much. We need a new strategy to figure how to accommodate all these competing needs with what should be a relatively static budget.
V. Bramhill
Duncan
