By Doug Draper
It’s a municipal election year and Niagara region’s council is on the verge of passing a budget for the year that would keep any increase on its portion of municipal taxes down to around zero.
A zero tax increase in an election year? Is that just a coincidence?
Some would say of course not.
They might say these councillors can now go out at election time and say; ‘Hey, look what we did this year. We kept the regional portion of your municipal taxes down to zero.’ Even if zero this year comes back to haunt us an big jump in taxes next year.
Others might say; ‘Hey, give the council a break. They are doing this because they are aware of all the joblessness out here, along with the all of the people struggling to get by on low and fixed incomes. They are feeling our pain.’
It is more likely that the decision the council approved this February 11 to beat down any increase on a regional budget for 2010 has something to do with all of the above.
It has something to do with the fact that the councillors are staring down the barrel of a municipal election this fall sees voters coming to the polls, feeling more angry and anxious than before about bread-and-butter issues like jobs and taxes. And it probably also has something to do with the fact that these councillors have heard the cry for some relief on the tax side from people in what is one of the most economically depressed regions of the province and country.
Maybe the councillors also listened to Andy Petrowski, who has remained a thorn in the regional council’s back as one of the very few citizens across Niagara who bothers to come out to its budget meetings and speak out.
“Regional taxes are increasing at an unsustainable rate,” said Petrowski during a presentation he delivered to the council this Feb. 11. “But what isn’t increasing though, at any rate, is employment, real family income and I say, sparingly, family satisfaction. …
“In 2010, the region sits here with the second highest unemployment rate in the country, at more than 11 per cent. We heard this afternoon that welfare roles have exploded by more than 20 per cent last year and we enjoy, or not, one of the lowest family incomes. …. ”
Petrowski went on and on describing the dire conditions of so many in a region ravaged by the continued loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs – conditions that the regional government, itself, recently presented to a provincial budge committee as it made a call to the Ontario government for more help.
At the end of the Feb. 11 meeting, a majority of regional councillors voted in favour of using some money from the reserve funds the region has to bring the region’s portion of the tax bill down to about zero, if not a figure that would actually give a few dollars back to some homeowners.
Not everyone on the council agreed with the idea of raiding the region’s reserves to come in with a near zero tax increase, however.
Some argued that the millions of dollars the region holds in reserve are there for critical circumstances that include the escalating costs the region faces to look after people who have lost their jobs and homes, and the souring costs of providing ambulance services to people in Niagara’s south end who, thanks to provincial cuts, have lost emergency room services in their hospitals.
Judy Casselman, a regional councillor for St. Catharines, was one of a minority on the council who opposed what she openly called “raiding the reserves” when the region faces numerous rising costs for providing services to Niagara’s citizens, including escalating ambulance services for residents in the southern tier.
But let’s leave some of the last words to veteran Niagara Falls regional councillor Bill Smeaton, who also expressed concern about raiding reserve funds to make this year’s budget look better.
“This business of waving the political flag at election time over these reserves, it is nonsense,” said Smeaton. “Yes, it may make a headline, and yes it may garner a few votes. But I tell you, it is a fool’s game. And the public is smarter than I think some of us give them credit for.”
In other words, it is kind of like dipping into your retirement funds before you are retired to make the balance sheet in your home look better today, knowing full well you are going to have less money to support your needs in the future.
What do you think? Share your views below as Niagara’s regional council moves to approving a budget for 2010, possibly before the end of this February.
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