Taxes likely to rise as council eyes budget talks
Councillors will soon start debating how much Windsor taxpayers will owe the city next year, but with $10 million to $20 million needed in cuts just to match 2017, Mayor Drew Dilkens says another zero per cent increase is virtually impossible.
On Tuesday, council will discuss the first 2018 budget report. Most departments have already submitted budget proposals with 10 per cent cuts, as has been commonplace in recent years in Windsor, which managed an incredible eight consecutive years without raising property taxes.
“I don’t think zero is a possibility this year, just knowing some of the cost pressures,” Dilkens said Tuesday.
“But I’m still committed to trying to keep it at or below the rate of inflation, which is consistent with what I promised to do when I asked folks to elect me as mayor.”
The 2017 budget ended Windsor’s run of property tax freezes, with an increase of 1.73 per cent — meaning the average homeowner paid $48 more in 2017, based on a home of $150,000.
“My goal this year is to do exactly what we did last year, to approach this in a fair, reasonable and balanced way,” said Dilkens.
Dilkens said the City of Windsor did another thing to keep property taxes down last year that many municipalities did not — including some in Essex County.
When the Municipal Property Assessment Corp. last year upped its assessment values for the majority of homes, the city didn’t simply cheer and collect more cash. Instead, city officials reduced the multiplier it uses per home, in order to collect only the same amount — a little less than $400 million — through the property levy.
“We didn’t play hanky-panky with the MPAC assessment,” Dilkens said. “It could be a way to get more money, but we decided not to.”
However, freezing the property tax for eight years, then allowing only a 1.73 per cent increase last year, means trimming budgets becomes increasingly challenging.
“People say there’s a lot of fat at city hall,” Dilkens said. “Believe me, we cut very close to the bone.”
Keeping taxes low requires a lot of wrangling. Besides suggesting budget items that could be axed, City CAO Onorio Colucci said administration will recommend some areas that could use a boost in funding.
“Every budget takes on a life of its own once you get into the details,” Colucci said. “But reaching zero has become much more difficult.”
Colucci said the city must address negotiated contract increases with employees, higher arbitration rulings, and general inflation, especially with utilities.
In 2018, with a proposed tax levy of $397 million, an operating budget of $793 million, and a capital budget of about $100 million, the city will face increased expenses of $10 million to $20 million. Those “pressures” amount to roughly 2.5 to five per cent of the budget that would need to be trimmed in order to bring in another zero per cent tax hike.
A $20-million cut to the overall budget is particularly hard when you consider the whole parks department budget is about $18 million.
“Year in, year out, the budget is the most involved and time-consuming exercise we undertake, and rightly so,” Colucci said.
“The budget is not just a numerical exercise. It’s really a plan for service delivery, which is why, after all, we’re here: to deliver services to residents.”