Counties start annual budget wrestling match
It’s coming out of the corner weighing in at almost five-and-a-half per cent but the eight mayors on counties council hope to tag-team wrestle the tax rate increase for the 2018 Prescott-Russell budget down to three-and-a-half.
Julie Ménard-Brault, finance director for the United Counties of Prescott-Russell (UCPR), presented counties council Wednesday with a summary of the first draft of the 2018 budget.
“It is a budget that has everything that council asked for or approved,” MénardBrault said. “I think it’s a good first draft.”
The one thing all eight mayors did not like about the report was the 5.4 per cent tax rate increase that came with the budget draft. Based on provincial guidelines for 2017, homeowners in Prescott-Russell pay $403.36 for every $100,000 worth of assessed value of their house and property. The preliminary budget report as is would result in a $21 increase on the property tax bill for an average home in Prescott-Russell.
Russell Township Mayor Pierre Leroux noted that council needs to maintain perspective on what an increase in the tax rate would mean in the real world.
“We’re looking at the cost of two large coffees a month,” he said, adding that there is room to make adjustments to the budget to reduce the impact, though some kind of tax rate increase is unavoidable for the counties after the past few years of avoiding the need for a rate increase.
“Five-point-four per cent is a scary number when you look at it just on the surface,” Leroux admitted. “But previous (counties) councils decided to stay at zero per cent (rate increase) at all costs, so this is where we are now.”
Clarence-Rockland Mayor Guy Desjardins objected to a possible 5.4 per cent increase to the counties tax rate, fearing the possible impact on his own municipality’s future growth potential. He noted that Clarence-Rockland is next door to Orléans and competes with that Ottawa suburb for both new residential and commercial development.
Hawkesbury Mayor Jeanne Charlebois agreed that the preliminary budget report does include every item on the counties’ wish list but she objected to the idea of a large tax rate increase to pay for those wishes.
“I still find five per cent too high,” she said. “I cannot support that.”
Both Ménard-Brault and Stéphane Parisien, UCPR chief administrator, noted that the report includes all items requested for consideration in the 2018 budget.
“If you took out everything council asked us to put in,” Parisien explained, “you’d be at zero (tax rate increase).”
“It’s not the end of the world,” said Mayor Desjardins, adding that borrowing for some items could avoid a 5.4 per cent rate hike.
“I won’t support a budget that creates debt,” argued Mayor Robert Kirby of East Hawkesbury. “It goes against my mentality. You can borrow today, but you have to pay for it later.”
Administration will present a follow-up report at the Oct. 25 session, with recommendations to bring the increase down to 3.5 per cent.