City looks to hike 2021 tax increase to 2.99%
Divided committee agrees to add money for urgent repair projects
Peterborough ratepayers are likely facing a 2.99 per cent allinclusive tax hike in 2021, up from the 2.87 per cent proposed in the draft budget document prepared by staff.
The increase came after three evenings of budget talks, where councillors debated every line of the draft budget.
For a homeowner with a house assessed at $260,000, a tax increase of 2.99 per cent is expected to mean paying $123.74 more on the overall tax bill in 2021 compared to 2020.
It adds up to $5.05 more than if councillors had stuck with the 2.87 per cent hike.
That same average home
owner can expect to pay $4,259.37 on their tax bill next year.
However it’s not a done deal yet: council must vote a final time at a meeting on Dec. 14 to adopt the budget.
The overall cost for city services next year is expected to be about $292.2 million, while the council plans to spend about $73.2 million on construction projects.
The proposed tax hike went up and down through the talks. Fo r example, councillors trimmed $182,000 in staff travel and training on Monday (which put the increase at 2.83 per cent).
But then late Wednesday night they adopted a motion from Coun. Kim Zippel to increase taxes by 0.16 per cent in 2021 to raise $2.5 million toward some of the city’s most pressing capital projects (bringing the overall increase to 2.99 per cent).
It wasn’t clear on Wednesday night exactly which projects the increase will pay for. Councillors also ordered a city staff report to identify construction that most needs to get done.
But Zippel said the backlog of construction projects includes items such as deteriorating pipes that can cause flooding.
“We need to have maintenance ... and to be continually addressing infrastructure,” she said.
The vote was 7-4 in favour of her motion.
Zippel voted for it, along with Mayor Diane Therrien, Coun. Gary Baldwin, Coun. Keith Riel, Coun. Lesley Parnell, Coun. Henry Clarke and Coun. Kemi Akapo.
Voting against the increase were Coun. Don Vassiliadis, Coun. Andrew Beamer, Coun. Stephen Wright and Coun. Dean Pappas.
Wright said he couldn’t support adding to the tax hike when people are struggling financially due to the COVID-19 pandemic — he said it’s just too difficult a year to consider charging people more.
But the mayor said the city’s far behind on a list of urgent repairs and that the budget’s always tight.
“It’s always a difficult year,” she said.
Therrien added that those repairs don’t get cheaper over time: “They only get more expensive, the longer you put them off.”
Riel agreed, saying the city is already in “disrepair.”
“We’re not moving the city forward,” he said, adding that it’s unwise to allow further deterioration of roads, for example, in a bid to save money.
Also on Wednesday, councillors voted to fulfil the Peterborough Po l i c e request for $27,033,150 — an increase of 2.43 per cent compared to this year.
The draft budget document included $26,966,980 for police, for an increase of about 2.2 per cent (which is roughly in line with all city departments).
That’s $66,170 shy of the police request and councillors voted on Wednesday to take that additional sum out of the city contingency fund to give police what they asked for.
Meanwhile, Akapo said she’s heard from many citizens asking council to reduce funding for police — she’s listening, she said, and represents citizens who have expressed those concerns.
Although police are often the only ones authorized to step in when someone’s in mental health crisis, Akapo said it doesn’t have to be that way — that police shouldn’t be left to constantly address mental health crises.
“They (police) will be the first to tell you that,” she said, adding that a reallocation of funds may allow the city to deal with mental health crises differently, as time goes on.
Therrien, who’s on the police board, said she’s been on ridealongs with officers and noticed that upwards of 90 per cent of calls are over crises related to mental health, addiction or poverty.
Therrien also mentioned that almost all the police budget goes to wages, so to defund police by half — as some advocates have requested — would likely mean breaking contracts and reducing the number of officers drastically.
Therrien also said some of the concern citizens have with police don’t apply to city officers — sometimes it’s more aimed at the RCMP, for example, which she said have “historically dispossessed” Indigenous people.
“There are a lot of layers to it — it’s complicated for sure,” Therrien said.
At the end of budget talks on Wednesday — which took 10 hours of meeting time over three evenings — Pappas, the finance chair, thanked staff and councillors for their focus and attention.
Few votes were unanimous, but Pappas said it’s OK for councillors to not always see eye to eye. “Although we don’t all agree, that’s what democracy’s all about.”