Seems like we just finished talking about the budget

Councillors will meet tonight to start discussing the 2014 budget.

Yes, seriously.

At a workshop councillors and staff will talk about the current and proposed budget model and guideline, the capital budget prioritization framework, public awareness and engagement surrounding the budget process and next steps.

We'll have coverage in tomorrow's paper.

Comments

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your coverage of the budget guidelines discussions now underway for 2014 at City Hall. Please continue to pursue this story. I am increasingly concerned about the tax-and-spend mentality down and City Hall and, based on a review of the material referenced in your story, believe that the proposed guideline is based on an unreasonable inflation assumption and is excessive because it double-counts the impact of growth.

I understand that the guideline is based on a five year historic average for CPI. Clearly the past five years are no representation of the current inflation environment and associated wage increase expectations for citizens, pension indexing for seniors on fixed income and so on...

A budget guideline should be reflective of current economic realities, note those five years ago.

The guideline is excessive because it double-counts the impact of growth. There should be no need to charge existing tax payers for the costs of growth! New property assessment on new houses does just that without having to increase the tax rate. The City is attempting to use that assessment growth to fund the ballooning costs of the administration and is then proposing to add an additional growth charge to the guideline to have existing residents pay an amount above inflation to cover the growth costs to service new residents!!!

Please dig deeper so that it is made clear to all that this guideline, which will commit taxpayers to more-than-double-the-rate-of-inflation increases, is out of touch with reality and needs to be tossed out in favour of one which limits the rate of increase to current CPI.

[D C]

Thanks for your post, Anonymous. Im concerned about the presumed revenue and rate increases as well. The last thing the staff and council of this City needs is a presumption that there will have more money to spend. Fiscally, it should assume the opposite and aim to reduce needless capital spending. Whatever happened to living within your means?

Moreover, if the City is basing these new rates/revenues on the mandated growth rates, we are in even deeper trouble. Homes dont just pop up out of the ground, especially high density buildings like the various condominiums in the works downtown. The City has already shown a penchant for subsidizing these private projects, which begs the question, how can it expect greater revenues when it is spending more money to facilitate the creation of these new mandated units?

New homes will not become money-makers for the City, they will become money-drains and will remain such for years. And in the end, guess who will be paying not only for all these new - and usually unnecessary - capital projects like the museum, downtown library, wasteful and traffic inefficient bike lanes, and bamboo floors in the mayors office? We will, the exiting residents of the City. Not the new folks moving in on our dime. Make them pay, slap a "guelph tax" on all new sales and make them pay for their own sewers and street lights ... welcome to Guelph indeed.

And don't even get me started on all of the tax concessions required to solicit new business to the area as also mandated by Queens Park.

[Laura]

I am concerned about the estimated .5% each year for 5 years that will be allocated to "revitalize the downtown"
2 developments that have already received money - market Square and the the condos across from the bus station have already indicated that they are nearly sold out. So why did they need millions of dollars of city money as incentive to build?? They have a "grant" in the form of 10 year moritorium on property tax increases for these properties. Supposedly in ten years when the city starts collecting the difference in taxes the city will see a large increase property taxes that will benefit everyone. I say we should all ask city council for an IOU so that in ten years when these developments pay more taxes - that the city will guarantee that property taxes will go down.

The sad thing is that taxes will never go down since more people means more services - the CN Watson report estimated that growth will cost 4.5-5% a year increase in property taxes. So one wonders how the city can justify these downtown grants and tell people that they will benefit the city in the long run one. How can they when these developments have not paid their fair share of taxes until ten years after the properties were redeveloped??

[Steve]

Laura, can you point me to any articles or other documentation detailing this 10-year moratorium on property taxes for new residents buying in the new condo?
I've never heard of this before.
As I understand it, council approved a grant to the developer to offset the costs of remediating brownfield lands. This grant will be paid to the developer incrementally over ten years, and only after the units are sold and generating tax revenue for the city. Condo buyers will be paying taxes as soon as they move in.

[RM]

We the taxpayers gave Tricar approx $1.7 million for remediation. We also gave them more than $3 million as an incentive to build....after they purchased the land and developed their business case. The condo owners will pay taxes from day 1 and we will immediately give them back to the developer. Everyone says we win, except there are costs associated with housing and the rest of the taxpayers will end up picking up these costs. We are very generous people.

I wonder how much we have given to developers in the east end? Oh right - nothing.