Dartmouth Cole Harbour councillors voice thoughts on HRM's budget

With last week's approval of HRM's operating and capital/project budgets for 2010/11 comes higher property taxes.

The balanced budget includes a modest increase in the general and transit tax rates and a variety of reductions to address a multi-million dollar funding gap, while still allowing additional spending in areas such as transit and solid waste operations.

The approved budget includes $731 million for operating (a 4.9 per cent increase over 2009/2010) and a gross capital/project budget of $157 million (an 11 per cent increase over 2009/2010).

The general rates of taxation on residential property will be set at $0.7088 for the urban area, $0.6918 for the suburban area and for the rural area. The general rates of taxation on commercial and business occupancy will be set at $3.257 for the urban area, $3.257 for the suburban area and $2.899 for the rural area.

The Weekly News spoke with councillors on this side of the harbour to get their thoughts on the budget.

Harbour East Community Council was split down the middle in the budget vote. Portland-East Woodlawn Coun. Bill Karsten, East Dartmouth-The Lakes Coun. Darren Fisher and Cole Harbour Coun. Lorelei Nicoll all voted for the budget, while Dartmouth Centre Coun. Gloria McCluskey, Woodside - Eastern Passage Coun. Jackie Barkhouse and Albro Lake - Harbourview Coun. Jim Smith all voted against.

"As a municipality I have concerns about a tax increase. These are tough times, and I believe the public have had enough with increasing taxes that are not improving service. If we were improving service and service delivery, I expect I may have viewed it differently," said Barkhouse. "But as it is, taxes have increased and service has reduced in some cases. For me that should not add up to homeowners being taxed higher."

Barkhouse said until the residents of District 8 see improvements to infrastructure and in service delivery she will have little appetite to support a tax increase.

"We have a flawed and compromised way of dealing with budget deliberations and I strongly believe we need to reevaluate how we handle the budget process in the future," she said.

Barkhouse was not the only one who felt the budget did not address the real issues living in tough economic times.

"Any increase in taxes will be difficult for residents, obviously," said McCluskey. "The residential increase in my district is 2.1 per cent."

McCluskey said she is also worried that the commercial tax increase of 3 per cent will be very difficult for businesses in downtown Dartmouth.

"Small business which is the backbone of our economy is already suffering with an increase in minimum wage, HST, higher water costs, higher electricity and now taxes," she said. "We will be forcing businesses to close or leave our area. The most important aspect of the budget is that the increase is not more."

Smith said he voted against this budget for a number of reasons.

"Streets and sidewalks such as Slayter Street will have to wait for at least another year now for repair while we cut a little over $4,000 from the HRM kids program which is shameful," he said. "This program helps those less fortunate families get their kids involved in sports."

Smith said increasing police enforcement cannot work well without the corresponding betterment of social opportunities, especially for those who live in his district.

He also had a problem with the budgetary process.

"After waiting till May to receive the budget books council did not allow for a proper time to research the draft budget," he said.

A noteworthy point of this budget for residents in his district was the increased expenditures on transit.

"And maintaining our roads must be a higher priority. We fell short by $6 million to just keep up with the present condition, deferred maintenance will be costly in the future and is not the best policy," said Smith.

Karsten said it is important for residents in his district to realize that the less than 1 per cent tax increase had the potential of being much more severe.

"During the three month budget process some residents misunderstood when they read about the $30 million funding gap. It was perceived by some to be a deficit and that was just not the case," said Karsten.

He said legislation dictates that the municipality can not run a deficit and it was, as the term implies a gap between what was to be generated as revenue versus the projected 2010-2011 Capital and Operational expenditures.

"This is not any different than what many households face from time to time," said Karsten. "The $30 million gap increased again by another $2 million when the province changed the HST. Other factors and projections meant the gap was close to $37 million by the time the budget was to be discussed."

Karsten said staff heard council's direction from those discussions and went away to find the cuts.

"They came back with the $14 million as initially directed by council, but during a process after the budget was tabled staff heard that council wanted even more cuts," he said. "Again staff answered the call and cut another $5 million without directly effecting services and programs including the weekly summer green cart collection that was threatened to be cut."

Nicoll said all budgets are difficult, especially when faced with a $35.5 million gap during tough economic times.

"HRM's Chief Financial Officer and her staff, plus staff from other business units, worked tremendously hard to answer council's direction to identify $14 million in efficiencies, new revenues and proposed budget reductions," said Nicoll. "I would add that I would have liked to have seen further efficiencies found to reduce the deficit to zero so there would have been no increase in the rate but more efficiencies will be reviewed by HRM Finance this fall and it is hoped that those findings will help next year's budget."

Nicoll said in the end, the approved budget actually reflects a combined $22.5 million in efficiencies, revenue increases, and expenditure reductions, as well as generation of $8 million through transit area rates and $3 million through the general rate.

"The resulting impact on our residents is an increase in the general tax rate of just under one percent," said Nicoll. "Individual impacts as a result of transit and commercial rates will vary. With all this considered the most important part is we avoided a large increase in the general tax rate."

Fisher said while he was hoping for a zero per cent general rate increase he was very pleased with the work of staff in designing this budget.

"Now the work begins in making deeper cuts for next year's budget," he said. "Staff have been asked to find another $13 million in cuts starting this fall. I'm hopeful that the cuts we make do not have too serious an affect on all our residents."

joanneoostveen@accesswave.ca