Victoria homeowners could face city property-tax and utility increases averaging more than $90 next year, according to the city’s preliminary budget numbers.
The proposed 2.8 per cent increase translates into $92 for a home assessed at $641,000. That includes increases of $65 in property taxes, $13 for water, $7 for solid waste and $7 for the new stormwater utility.
For a business assessed at $540,000, a 2.8 per cent increase translates into $215 — a $183 increase in property taxes, $13 in water and $16 to the stormwater utility.
Mayor Lisa Helps said the goal should be tax increases of no more than inflation.
“The city [increase] without police is only 1.6 per cent. So I think, certainly, increasing at inflation is sustainable,” Helps said, noting that in preparing the budget, staff found $345,000 in savings.
“I think our goal should be to have tax increases of no more than inflation, and that’s going to take a lot of work and a lot of innovation and efficiencies to get there. But I think we can do it.”
Salaries and benefits are the major driver behind the tax increase, accounting for 1.3 percentage points of the total. Other factors include the 2018 municipal election (0.22 percentage points) and costs such as insurance and software licensing.
The draft operating budget totals $233.3 million with a proposed capital budget of $43.1 million. The 2.77 per cent increase in property taxes will generate an additional $3.46 million.
City financial staff are conservatively estimating the 2017 surplus at $2 million.
As much as $1.3 million in revenue from new assessments might be available to fund new initiatives or capital projects, or to reduce taxes, city staff say.
As it stands, the 2.77 per cent tax increase falls slightly below council’s established target maximum increase of inflation (1.8 per cent) plus one per cent.
The budget proposes $1.46 million in new one-time supplemental items and $705,000 in new ongoing supplemental items. New initiatives identified as one-time only include $300,000 for parks cleanup related to overnight sheltering, $150,000 for high-risk tree removal, $109,000 for a public engagement adviser and $180,000 for neighbourhood transportation management.
New ongoing expenditures include $328,000 to hire a new parks planner, a transportation planner and a fire-prevention officer, $99,000 to hire a new waste-management engineer, $99,000 for a building-project administrator, $81,000 for graphic-design support and $20,000 for a youth leaders in training program.
Budget documents project increases in residential property taxes and utilities of between 2.17 per cent and 2.45 per cent in each of the next four years. Those annual increases are estimated at between $73 and $88 for the typical home.
The projected increases for the typical small business are projected to range between 2.25 per cent and 2.30 per cent, with annual tax and utility increases ranging between $178 and $194.
Helps said a zero-increase budget is probably possible, but it wouldn’t be pleasant.
“It’s a real balance because the calls for service aren’t going down. The requests for more public engagement aren’t going down. The requests for someone to come out in the middle of the night when a storm drain breaks aren’t going down,” she said.
“We could easily hold taxes at zero. We could decrease taxes, but you’d see a decreased level of service, and people wouldn’t be happy. I can guarantee that.”
Council has budget workshop sessions scheduled for three days over the course of this week and next, to be followed by a month of public consultation before any decisions are made.
