Fiscal responsibility doesn't just mean cutting taxes
The end of the 2013 Clearview Township budget process is finally in sight, and it is decision time. The final budget workshop will take place at 12:30 pm on Monday, March 4 and members of the public are encouraged to attend. The draft budget calls for a 9.53 per cent increase in the Clearview portion of your tax bill, or a 4.02 per cent increase overall, but there is no doubt that Council will make cuts. The question is what to cut, and how much.
I have heard a lot of criticism of the draft budget over the past few weeks, much of which I agree with, but some of which misses the mark. Here are some misperceptions that I think need to be addressed:
Our population isn’t increasing, so Township spending shouldn’t be going up, either. The main driver of spending in Clearview isn’t population growth, it’s provincial regulations and the threat of liability. Almost everything the Township does, from road maintenance to snow clearing to the maintenance of firefighting equipment, is subject to provincial regulations that get more stringent and more expensive to implement every year. The penalties for non-compliance are also increasingly draconian. Our community halls are a good example of these problems. Years ago, the Township and residents might have been happy to turn a blind eye to the fact that our halls maybe didn’t quite meet all the relevant codes, but that is no longer an option. Municipal employees and fire officials can literally be thrown in jail for overlooking safety deficiencies, and the cost of a lawsuit could be catastrophic. This is why Council included $50,000 for hall upgrades in the draft budget. The eventual cost will be far higher. For good or bad, increasing municipal taxes are in part a direct result of living in a litigious, safety-obsessed society.
Businesses are cutting back due to tough economic times, and the Township should, too. Municipal governments are not businesses. Businesses cut back when demand for their services decline, but our need for good roads, clean drinking water and recreational opportunities for our kids doesn’t decline when the economy goes south. If anything, the demand for municipal services increases in tough economic times.
The Township is over-staffed and the staff are over-paid. When I was first elected, I suspected this was true, and over the past two years Council has worked hard and spent many hours revamping our staff structure and examining our pay scale. We have eliminated several positions and shifted responsibilities in an effort to get the most out of our Township employees. I truly believe that Clearview is now a lean organisation with a staff that is paid fairly for the excellent work that they do. There is always work to be done in this area, but when it comes to staffing, there is very little fat that could be cut.
Clearview’s taxes are too high, and are pricing us out of the market when it comes to attracting new residents. Nobody likes to pay taxes, but property taxes in Clearview are about average for Simcoe County. We tend to focus on the rate of tax increase at budget time, but our overall tax rate is lower than many of our neighbours. The tax rate in Collingwood is about 20 per cent higher than ours, and they don’t seem to have trouble attracting new residents. In fact, all of the high-growth municipalities in Simcoe have higher taxes than Clearview, with the exception of Wasaga Beach.
Public input doesn’t make a difference. Council has already made up its mind. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am sure that there will be vigorous debate at the workshop on Monday over what to cut, and that debate will be informed by the public input to date and the thoughts of the public at the workshop. Council deliberately left some questionable expenditures in the draft budget in order to get public input before cutting.
Municipalities in Ontario are not allowed to run a deficit. The way Clearview, and almost every other municipality in this province, has kept taxes down in the recent past is by putting off necessary work and neglecting to save for future expenses. We have created an infrastructure deficit. Eliminating that deficit will be painful, but the longer we delay, the more painful it will be. The biggest component of the proposed increase in the 2013 Clearview budget is the establishment of reserve funds to pay for the future maintenance or replacement of our roads, bridges, recreational facilities and community halls. Large spending projects predicated on future residential growth, such as the Emergency Services Hub and the Wasaga Beach wastewater hook-up, have contributed to our current financial situation and I have opposed them, but those decisions have been made and we must now live with them. I won’t support a budget that pays for these decisions by ignoring our infrastructure deficit or that refuses to save for costs that we know we will incur, sooner or later. That would not be fiscally responsible. There are things in this budget that can and should be cut, but we must resist the temptation to keep our current taxes low by shifting costs to future generations.
Brent Preston is Clearview Township’s Councillor for Ward 3.
