Paying more tax than you think

Dear Editor:

The 2019 West Kelowna budget was prepared based on a three per cent property tax increase. Almost all recommended capital items, operational budget requests and full-time additional employee requests were approved, which included additional reserves of $7.3 million with $700,000 going to a future city hall building.

So our taxes are paying for a city hall building that we do not even have the benefit of using.

This is because council refuses to build a city hall on currently-owned city land (Bartley and Stevens, 11 acres) and instead wants to purchase more land in what they call the downtown core.

Yet, this total three per cent budget had funds remaining to be spent/allocated of around $100,000.

So what did this council do after they learned all of the requests for operations, capital, new full-time employees and utilities would be totally covered by a three per cent tax increase with about $100,000 left over? They talked about increasing the tax to 3.88 per cent or even 4.88 per cent.

Coun. Stephen Johnston (who in the end still voted for the increase) asked the mayor where he came up with that tax increase figure.

The mayor stated the following: “I just want to get away from the three per cent and I like eights”

They voted to increase the tax to 3.88 per cent with no real rationale except they may want to spend it on something and it’s only a few dollars more for taxpayers.

City council is hoping you are not paying attention. They are planning to blame the additional 0.88 per cent increase on the new corporate medical costs, but these costs were already included in the three per cent increase.

Good luck West Kelowna. Your new council is spending much more of your money than you realize. Everything the city spends comes from taxpayer/citizens’ pockets. Did you get a 3.88 per cent increase in your wage or pension? Richard McLeod West Kelowna