North Cowichan council has whittled the projected tax increase for 2025 down to 8.87 per cent after a four-hour budget meeting on Feb. 11.
During the committee of the whole meeting, a number of items brought forward by Mayor Rob Douglas and unanimously approved by council were integral in shaving approximately $700,000 from the budget for the year.
Douglas said it was decided that a number of items and projects, including improvements to Mount Richards, upgrades at the Crofton outdoor pool and major culvert work planned in the municipality this year, will be paid for by reserve funds rather than property taxes.
He said council managed to cut the projected tax increase while, at the same time, hiring an engineer and a planning staff member, which were deemed critical, and committing funds to fire protection and support to the highway corridor.
"We're hoping to bring the tax increase down even further if the costs of the E-Comm 911 service are not downloaded to us this year, which could see a further reduction of two per cent," Douglas said.
"The nine other mayors impacted by the downloading of the costs of the E-Comm 911 service and myself are still lobbying for that, but there are no promises. We're not at a level in the tax increase that council is comfortable with, but it's lower than originally forecast and that's great for our taxpayers."
Staff told council last month that a tax increase of 8.4 per cent in 2025 is required just to maintain core services and replace critical infrastructure.
The reason for such a high tax increase this year is partly the result of a wide variety of pressures that are out of North Cowichan’s ability to change, including the two per cent increase for the E-Comm 911 services, a 2.14 per cent increase in RCMP costs and a 4.26 per cent increase to account for inflationary pressures and increases in operational costs, including library costs.
After a number of public meetings and council debates on the budget, in which the proposed tax increase went as a high as 10.4 percent, it's expected that council will give the first three readings to the 2025 budget on March 5.
A motion by Coun. Bruce Findlay at the meeting on Feb. 11 for North Cowichan staff to prepare a report on options to reduce the tax increase in 2025 to a maximum of five per cent was soundly defeated
Before introducing his motion, Findlay said that most of what was discussed during the meeting was expenses, with little input on revenues in North Cowichan.
He noted the municipality owns a lot of land and suggested as an option that some could be sold to help deal with North Cowichan’s financial pressures.
“I’m also incredibly frustrated that we have a municipal forest that’s been untouched for years,” Findlay said.
Coun. Chris Istace said that staff has already done everything council has asked them in regards to the budget so far in the process, and there is little left to cut. He said the items that have been included in the budget are legitimately needed and not “pie-in-the-sky” projects.
“A five per cent tax increase has no basis in reality,” Istace said. “This is a down-to-earth budget and we didn’t approve a lot of the [supplemental requests], which would have added another 11 per cent to the budget.”
Coun. Christopher Justice said he felt a little disappointed that Findlay’s motion was made so late in the budget process, and found it disrespectful.
“This motion should have been made at the last meeting,” he said. “I have to conclude that the motion is really not a serious motion, but more like a publicity stunt.”
Douglas agreed that the motion was made late in the process and should have been made earlier so that staff would have had the time to prepare options that council could consider at that meeting.
“We started with an 8.4 per cent increase which staff had advised is necessary just to maintain core services and replace critical infrastructure,” he said. “We’ve considered supplemental requests on top of that so it would be difficult to go back to square one.”
Coun. Mike Caljouw also said it was too late to start the process again from the beginning, and that he was blindsided by Findlay’s motion.
“I don’t see any niceties [in the budget], and I think we’ve sweated over what’s come to the table, and it hasn’t been easy for us,” he said.
Findlay said he understands the other council members’ concern over the timing of the motion, but pointed out that the budget doesn’t have to be finalized until May 15.
“I understand that we don’t want to be waiting until the last minute, but we are seeing unprecedented cost increases and that’s why I brought the motion forward,” he said.
The motion was defeated, with only Findlay and Coun. Tek Manhas voting for it.
