Councillors get earful on taxes at Ward 4 session
Elected officials on the hot seat at Ward 4 meeting ahead of next week’s budget vote
In two Regina churches, precisely a week apart, residents gathered to enjoy light snacks and listen to the same councillors talk about next Tuesday’s city budget vote.
The setting was the same, but the political mood couldn’t be more different.
While last week’s Ward 3 budget town hall attracted opponents of “militarized police” and demands for increased social spending, this Tuesday’s meeting saw a retired businessman press the city to count every pencil and eraser.
He got a lot of support. Residents at Coun. Lori Bresciani’s Ward 4 town hall, at Living Hope Alliance Church in the city’s southeast, repeated calls for a tax freeze. But councillors told them that’s impossible, with one even sticking out his neck for a further hike.
“I’m going to be the most hated man in Regina,” said Coun. Jason Mancinelli. “I’m going to advocate for an extra 1.5 per cent mill rate.”
That would bring the total property tax increase to 6.36 per cent. Mancinelli said the city needs to invest in its assets now to make up for years of neglect.
“I can’t even imagine putting forward a zero per cent mill rate increase right now,” he stressed. “There are some big infrastructure deficits.”
The four councillors present — Bresciani, Mancinelli, Andrew Stevens and John Findura — agreed on the challenges: Rising infrastructure bills, less money to pay them. Regina is still facing a massive revenue hole left by last year’s provincial cuts.
But Julian Oleksinski said city staff need to ask a simple question of every expense item: “Do we need pencils? Do we need erasers?” City manager Chris Holden has said he’s done precisely that, more or less, asking city departments to search for savings. He said they found $9 million over two years.
Oleksinski pushed for more. Again and again, he pressed the councillors to adopt a “zero mindset” on taxes.
“Do you go in with an idea that you’re going to raise them every year?” he asked. “My entire life, I’ve seen governments of all levels give tremendous salaries, benefits and wages — everything under the sun — to civil servants, and I think Regina has been no different.”
Another resident, engineer Lakkavally Chandramohan, said he doesn’t have the income to keep paying increased property taxes every year. He bemoaned what he saw as waste, like buses with “hardly even one passenger” on board.
His wife, Savidri Chandramohan, asked what the city is doing to reduce its labour costs, which make up about half of total expenses. “They’re increasing our taxes, but they haven’t reduced their wages,” she said.
Stevens told her that there have, in fact, been efforts. Last year, outof-scope staff took a wage freeze, as did senior administrative staff, apart from a few performancebased benefits.
“It’s not true that we’ve seen a bloated city administration,” he said. “All of the evidence points to the opposite. We’ve seen the growth of less expensive, cheaper, more precarious, casual and parttime employment, and a real decrease in full-time equivalents.”
A few voices joined his defence. Ironworker Chris Gust said it’s unfair to ask more of workers who’ve already seen their wages rise by less than inflation, especially if it means violating collective agreements.
“You’re going to come to these people and say we want to break your contracts and take $2,000 to $3,000 of food off your table so that my taxes don’t go up by 100 bucks? It’s indecent,” he said.
Mancinelli agreed that union contracts tie council’s hands. Stevens told residents to keep one maxim in mind: you get what you pay for.
“I’m assuming that some of you are probably disappointed by the biweekly garbage collection change,” he said. “You got your wish. We let go of staff. That’s what it looks like when you deal with these questions by getting rid of people, you compromise services.”
All four councillors said they’re unwilling to reduce service levels, though few were willing to join Mancinelli in his call for a further tax hike. Stevens said he’ll propose cutting grants to Evraz Place and might vote against the proposed $3-million police budget increase. In turn, he plans to introduce amendments for increased spending on bike lanes and community organizations.
Stevens said he’d vote against the existing proposal. But he didn’t show his hand on the mill rate.
Findura and Bresciani did, without giving a specific number. Both said they ’ll try to reduce the property tax increase below administration’s proposed 4.86 per cent, with Findura pushing for further efficiencies.
Bresciani added that she’d like to examine whether last year’s operating surplus, together with money sitting in reserves, could be spent in place of tax dollars. She also floated the idea of deferring certain projects.
But Mancinelli warned that spending less now will increase costs down the road.
“I wouldn’t keep my house in that type of order, so I can’t make a recommendation to keep my city in that kind of order,” he said. “I want to build the capacity of the city to do its job properly, rather than death by 1,000 cuts.”