Budget Talk Two

On January 3rd, The Auroran published another chapter of the budget saga.

A debate took place on the merits of using $100,000 of surplus to reduce the tax rate in 2012

Main protagonists appear to have been Councillors Thompson ,Ballard and Treasurer Elliott.

Note: a Council debate is between elected representatives.

The Treasurer pointed out $100,000 is one third of one per cent of the tax rate.

He said; " that in looking at budget line items, if excess planning fees and supplementary taxes were taken out of the equation, the operations of the Town of Aurora were running at zero".

"We paid the bills with the revenues we had so the supplementary fees and the planning applications were the surplus drivers in that perspective and both of those came from development activity "

"They didn't come necessarily from the taxpayer ,they came from the developer taxpayer but not those who are expected to finance the operations of the town."

The last clause is evocative;   "those who are expected to pay the operations of the town"

Who precisely are "those who are expected to pay the operations of the town"?

Are we speaking of the 2012 operations of the town?

Or are we talking about stashing millions of dollars to subsidize operations of the town ten or forty years from now?

Are "those who are expected to pay the operations of the town" expected to use services in 2012  but perhaps not in 2013 or years thereafter?

A municipality is not permitted to budget for a deficit. The principle of property tax is those who use services, pay for services.It's called  equity or plain old-fashioned fairness.

Why should I pay for a recreation facility or a fire pumper expected to be needed twenty or forty years from now? Why should my taxes in 2012 subsidize taxes in 2052?

Why should easing the burden for residents not even born,be my responsibility?

Exorbitant taxes make it unaffordable to live in a home that is fully paid for, leaving insufficient resources to keep it warm in the winter, put food on the table and  keep water flowing from the faucet.

Why is that reasonable? Where is the logic? Who has authority to make that decision?

Would "those who are expected to pay the operations of the town " be the decision-makers? or those on the public payroll? or perhaps the culture centre board and staff have a deciding vote?

Should they  be receiving half a million dollars from tax resources to provide "cultural services" at no cost or less than cost to culture consumers.

If we added a factor for rent to the half million hand -out, we are looking at pretty damned close to 3 points in the tax bill. If we added the cost of 2.3million dollars used to renovate the building for a state of the art museum which is still there but unused, the rent would be substantial.

Ice users pay for arena operations. Soccer players pay for field maintenance. What is it about culture vultures that  entitles them  to a cool million from the town treasury, adding three points annually onto the tax rate?

Calculate funds provided to the Historical Society.... $100.000 to the Arboretum for pet projects... buying a pig in a poke of "Customer Service".....$440,000 for a software package that's the tip of the costberg... leasing the hydro building, needed for town purposes, for less than cost of maintenance....and all other non-essential fal-de-rols.

Remove them all from the budget and I'm telling you my friends, we could be looking at an easy-peasy reduction in the 2012 budget rather than an increase, that wouldn't make a smidgen of difference to the quality of service expected by " those expected to pay the cost of services".

We should identify essential cost of operating the municipality, create equity between facility users and determine who should pay what.

While we are at it, we should separate reality from hocus pocus.

That's the job of elected representatives. With or without the aid or assistance of the paid help.

Most certainly it can be done without public statements from the Chief Magistrate that are not in the least bit meaningful.