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The Blue Mountains council is looking at a tax decrease for residents in 2020, however the budget hasn’t been finalized.
Council gathered as committee of the whole yesterday and today (Feb. 3 and 4) for budget deliberations at town hall.
“Two things are really driving the need for service in the area – the people who own property and live here and the 2.5 million tourists that visit our town every year,” says Councillor Rob Sampson, who is chairing the budget meetings. “Today we have spent a significant amount of time speaking to the services that the tourists consume, such as our parks and beaches.”
Council examined the proposed budget that provides the same service level and the same services delivered at a 3.68 per cent decrease over the 2019 rate. The blended rate with the combines the town, council and education tax is a decrease of 0.98 per cent.
Maintaining the current level of services includes the tax levy of town controlled divisions, the Blue Mountains Public Library, the Conservation Authority Tax Levy, as well as the town’s growth.
The decrease in taxation can be attributed to assessment growth in The Blue Mountains.
“Growth means any additional assessment that the town will be collecting taxation from in 2020,” says Sampson. “Because the town is experiencing significant development, taxation from growth is estimated at $989,114 in 2020. This growth causes the tax rate for the town to decrease by 4.82 per cent over 2019 at the same level of service.”
Additional changes to the budget include a review of council compensation (including a possible raise for councillors), the establishment of a sustainability coordinator, development charges for a Local Planning Appeal Tribunal and the establishment of a legal services division.
“The town has grown and every time you grow you learn to do things differently. We have grown to the size where we see value in establishing an internal legal service,” Sampson says. “Now, some services we cannot internalize because they are so specialized. So, in legal we have internalized some areas of the department but in certain, highly-specialized areas we are keeping an external contractor in that role.”
Sampson notes this year’s budgeting process is slightly different than in years past. In September, council directed a number of major departments to complete zero-based budgeting, which flips the conventional budgeting process upside down.
“The zero-based budgeting is actually the reverse of what you do in a regular budget. Zero based budgeting means that you first assess what services you want to deliver. You cost it and then you determine whether it is affordable,” Sampson explains.
“If it is not affordable, you circle back around to the service level and evaluate whether the service level has been set too high, too low and you keep going back and forth until you are satisfied with the affordability number. So, zero-based budgeting looks at what you need, what it costs and then allows you to adjust the service level.”
Over the course of two days, Council heard from each of the seven committees of the council on their budget initiatives, this includes the Sustainability Advisory Committee, Joint Municipal Physician Recruitment Committee, Communications Advisory Committee, Transportation Committee, Grants and Donations Committee, Economic Development Advisory Committee, and the Agricultural Committee.
“[Developing a budget] is a long exercise and we are one of the only committees that spends four full days examining the numbers, but it is well worth it because it sets the direction of the town over the next year or so. It is a yearly resetting of plans and that is so critical,” Sampson adds.
The public can expect to see an updated draft budget on Feb. 13 on the town website and a public meeting will be held on March 9 with the goal of approving the final 2020 budget by April 6.
