Draft budget proposes $85.6M for 191 construction projects
2.85% city tax hike
The city may be spending $85.6 million on 191 construction projects in 2018 – an increase of about $6 million, compared to 2017 – if they approve the budget as set out in documents drafted by city staff.
Councillors got their first look at the budget documents for 2018 on Monday night and it calls for $85.6 million for construction plus an additional $270 million to carry out city services.
Councillors didn’t start debating the proposed budget on Monday, though: they have until Nov. 27 to review the draft documents before they begin a week of budget talks.
In the meantime, there will be a public meeting on Nov. 22 where people will be able to weigh in on the draft budget at City Hall.
What does the proposed budget mean to citizens? If adopted as proposed, it will mean a 2.85 per cent tax increase on your bill.
For an average taxpayer with a house assessed at $243,800, it would add about $109 to the tax bill.
For that homeowner, the total tax bill would be about $3,939.
That’s an all-inclusive increase, meaning it includes the municipal taxes plus the education tax, stormwater and sewer surcharge.
The sewer surcharge helps the city look after sewers, and has been charged for years. New in 2018 is the stormwater charge, which gives the city money to maintain stormwater retention ponds (it’s expected to cost an average homeowner about $17, on the bill).
Meanwhile the city has at least one other new source of revenue, in 2018.
Shorelines Casino Peterborough, which is under construction now on Crawford Dr., is expected to open in late 2018; that’s going to put an estimated $1.5 million in the city’s coffers through a revenuesharing plan.
For 2018, city treasurer Sandra Clancy recommends giving $150,000 of that $1.5 million to the Downtown BIA (the city owes the DBIA $150,000 annually, for the next 20 years, to offset the loss of business it will suffer as a result of council’s decision not to consider locating the casino downtown).
Clancy recommends that the rest – $1.35 million – be put toward construction projects.
Council has also voted to sell Peterborough Distribution Inc. (PDI) to Hydro One. PDI is the system of poles and wires that carries electricity to Peterborough, Lakefield and Norwood.
But Clancy doesn’t think the transaction will take place until very late in 2018, and her overview doesn’t mention how much money the city can expect to make on the sale (estimates last year were between $50 million and $55 million, after taxes and PDI’s debts are paid).
Clancy advises in her budget overview that PDI money be put toward capital projects, in the future – not toward reducing the tax levy.
Although councillors haven’t debated exactly what to do with proceeds from the sale of PDI, they’ve generally planned to invest it and use the interest for construction projects.
There’s also a list in the draft budget of requested items that staff has left out of the budget that council might want to debate putting back in.
Five city staff positions – including an age-friendly coordinator, to look after seniors’ needs – were on the list.
Meanwhile the library board had asked for a part-time security guard in the newly-renovated library on evenings and weekends, when there are fewer supervisors working in the library. City staff doesn’t recommend it.
It would have cost roughly $21,000 in 2018, and the library board says it would help to curb increased incidents of misbehaviour that have occurred at the library, over the last few years.
The list also recommends no funding for the warming room to stay open an extra two months in 2018, as it did in 2017.
This year, the city gave the winter-and-spring homeless shelter money to stay open two extra months, until the end of June, to help homeless people through a dire lack of available apartments. But the extra $25,000 is not recommended for 2018.
NOTE: Sandra Clancy and fellow finance staff were colour-coordinated Monday, all wearing pin. The trend started last year when the budget was contained in purple books, she said.