Spending habits differ greatly: report
Fraser Institute compares municipal taxation and spending across Metro Vancouver
There is a vast disparity in the per-person spending among 17 Metro Vancouver municipal governments, a new Fraser Institute report suggests.
West Vancouver was found to be the highest per capita spender at $2,583, while also collecting the most revenue from its residents.
The City of Vancouver was the third highest spender, at $1,944 per person, while Surrey was listed as the lowest spender, sitting at $1,057.
According to the report, Vancouver has the largest municipal population in B.C. and collects the third highest amount of revenue from its residents per capita, while Surrey has the second largest population but collects the second lowest amount of money per capita from its residents.
“It’s not clear why you would expect the City of Vancouver to be such a higher spending government and taxing government than the City of Surrey. There’s no clear reason why that should be the case,” said Charles Lammam, one of the authors of the report.
“I think we are providing the public a very important service by giving them the information they need to get a better sense of what the state is of their municipal finances.”
These are similar numbers from reports in years prior, and is being released just months before civic elections take place across the province, in hopes of gearing up conversation on matters like spending and taxation.
The report examined municipal finances by looking at data on revenue, spending, debt and population. It does not detail what types of services and spending exist in each municipality.
Vancouver councillor Raymond Louie said the report did not examine what the particular needs were of each city, and that hindered the report’s ability to provide proper analysis.
“The Fraser Institute is once again telling an incomplete story,” Louie said.
“They should really detail the service differences. For example, the City of Vancouver polices and manages the census metropolitan population when it comes in for a sporting event, or for some event that happens in our city. We have a higher policing cost as a result of that. Whether that’s the hours of operation we provide for our services, or the fact that we have a very low crime rate.
“A single line item, dollar per person comparator, does a disservice to the services being provided from one city to the next.”
Surrey councillor and mayoral candidate Tom Gill said there have been huge obstacles in managing the city’s issues with a modest tax base.
“The biggest cost-driver for us is public safety,” said Gill, who is also chair of Surrey’s finance committee.
“It would be very wonderful for me to have a higher tax base to be able to support more initiatives, there’s no question about that.
“But I think that the challenge that we face is that the City of Surrey has a tremendous amount of young families who are on a very tight budget, and we’re very conscious of that.”
The report included 17 of the 21 municipalities in Metro Vancouver.
The Fraser Institute is once again telling an incomplete story.”
Raymond Louie, Vancouver councillor