CRD directors tell staff to roll back 4.85% hike in preliminary budget
Some deride move as ‘optics;’ concerns raised over services
Capital Regional District directors have sent back a preliminary budget calling for an 4.85 per cent tax lift on shared regional services, telling staff to try to shave two percentage points off the increase.
“I’m asking the staff to come back with options on how we do that, and then we can decide if we don’t want those services or if we’re willing to pay that additional amount,” said Langford Coun. Denise Blackwell, who proposed the reduction.
Blackwell’s motion, supported by directors sitting as a committee of the whole, excludes the sewage treatment project portion of the budget.
Savings would come only from those areas to which all municipalities and electoral areas contribute.
Some directors derided the move as “optics,” as it would cut only $464,000 out of an operational budget of about $248 million. And about half of that has already been saved by a decision to dig into the Regional Growth Strategy reserve.
View Royal Mayor David Screech noted that of the $42.43 increase the average residential property owner in his municipality is facing, $35 is for sewage treatment, leaving an increase of $7.43 for everything else. Trying reduce that amount doesn’t make sense, he said.
“There’s no point in trying to gain, in my mind, political points for getting less of a percentage increase if you are hurting the organization by not bringing forward the staffing [that is needed],” Screech said.
But Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins, whose residents were facing a CRD tax increase of 17.2 per cent, the highest of any municipality in the region, said it’s simply too much.
“At this point, I cannot support what is coming forward and I would like the opportunity to look at what other reductions could be made,” Desjardins said.
Newly elected CRD chairman Steve Price said that trying to cut two percentage points out of an already lean budget can lead only to a reduction in services.
“You’re not talking about much, but something has to give,” Price said after the meeting.
“Staff do not bring budgets to the board that are inflated with something they can cut off just to make it look good for presentation purposes. It’s already pretty lean when it comes up.” Blackwell disagreed. “It’s almost five per cent [of a tax increase] and inflation is 1.9 per cent. … There’s got to be some fat in there,” she said.
The preliminary budget is projected to increase total operational spending by $9.4 million to $248 million next year, an increase of 3.9 per cent over 2017.
Of that, about 26 per cent or $64.5 million was to be raised by property taxes — an increase of $3.4 million over 2017. (About half of revenues are derived from fees and sale of services. The balance comes through grants, debt, reserves and other transfers). The total tax requisition is projected to increase by 5.5 per cent, of which 2.1 per cent is for sewage treatment, 1.1 per cent is for new staffing and 2.3 per cent is for inflation and new initiatives.
The percentage tax increases homeowners face vary, depending on assessments and what CRD services their municipalities or electoral districts participate in.
CRD capital spending will increase $54.8 million to $213 million next year, with the core area sewage treatment mega-project accounting for the lion’s share.
The sewage treatment project accounts for almost 85 per cent of the increase. Other capital spending includes about $29 million in drinking water infrastructure and about $9 million for wastewater infrastructure on the Saanich Peninsula.
In the core municipalities of Victoria, Saanich, Esquimalt and Oak Bay and the West Shore municipalities of View Royal, Colwood and Langford, the primary driver of the tax increase is the sewage treatment project.
While Victoria, Saanich and Oak Bay are paying for sewage treatment through utility bills, Esquimalt and the West Shore municipalities are collecting the costs through property taxes — leading to percentage tax increases in the double digits.