Staffing increase part of new budget

Beaconsfield has tabled its $44.9-million budget for 2019.

Capital works projects in the new year will see $7.9 million invested in underground infrastructure upgrades and road work, plus $4.7 million invested in parks improvements, including a major facelift for Heights Park.

Local budget spending in 2019 grows by 3.01 per cent, or $678,443.

Mayor Georges Bourelle said the increase is due in part to committing an extra $250,000 to recreation and culture programming and the hiring of two employees — a communications officer who will work on the city’s social media presence, including the eventual introduction of council meeting webcasts, plus an IT expert who will upgrade the city’s information technology systems.

Beaconsfield’s 2019 payment to the Montreal Agglomeration Council (agglo) increases by $287,437, or 1.34 per cent, to $21,715,001. The agglo payment represents 48.3 per cent of the city’s operating budget.

The total increase in the overall operating budget is $965,880, or 2.2 per cent. In 2017, a flaw was discovered in the way the payments to the agglo for shared services were calculated. The flawed formula resulted in the demerged municipalities overpaying a total of $20 million.

It was agreed that credits would be spread out over three years.

“In retrospect, we should have taken the entire credit in the first year and not agreed to spreading it out over three years,” Bourelle said. “We’re told our credit is reflected in our (share of payments), but spreading it out over three years makes it impossible to know how the $20 million was allocated.”

The residential mill rate remains at the 2018 rate of 0.3191 per $100 evaluation. In Beaconsfield, home valuations are averaged over a three-year period based on the triennial assessment roll.

The average value of a home is $571,647, which means the homeowner will pay $1,824.13 in local residential tax, plus a base $160 for garbage and the flat $40 water fee for a local tax bill of $2,024.13, compared to $1,991.40 in 2018.

Add $3,036.02 in agglo tax — up from $2,997.15, or 1.3 per cent, from 2018 — and the tax bill for 2019 is $5,060.14.

The tax bill in 2018 was $4,988.55. The total average tax increase in 2019 is 1.44 per cent. The mill rate for a building of six units or more remains steady at 0.3191 per $100 evaluation, the non-residential mill rate is 1.7091, up from 1.6837 in 2018, and the mill rate for vacant land is 0.6382, up from 0.6279 in 2018.

The city’s $53.1 million threeyear capital works program projects $15.4 million in spending in 2019, $18.4 million in 2020 and $19.2 million in 2021.

In 2019, $1.5 million will be invested in an overhaul of Heights Park and an additional $1.2 million will be spent on general park improvements. The re-naturalization of the seawall is budgeted to cost $850,000 and $2.35 million will be spent on city buildings and other facilities.

Bourelle said the big investment for 2020 is slated to be the extension of the recreation centre with an estimated budget of $4 million and, in 2021, one community pool and chalet will be reconstructed with an estimated budget hit of $4.5 million. The recently announced launch of the reimagining of Centennial Hall Memorial Park and the adjacent Lord Reading Yacht Club has a budget of $300,000 for the 2019 consultation phase, which involves multiple public consultations and workshops led by a steering committee.

Bourelle said the real money will be spent once the vision for the properties is forged.

“Once we have the vision, the challenge will be how we finance it,” he said.

“It will be a lot of money. We’ll have to put on our thinking caps.”