AMHERSTBURG – Council cut tree planting, reduced operating hours at the Libro Centre and closed the yard waste depot as part of its budget deliberation on Tuesday.
Council has not yet adopted its budget, which started with a 10.1 per cent tax increase or a hike of $159 on a home valued at $174,000 before Tuesday’s budget reductions. The Amherstburg property tax bill also includes levies for the county and education, which represent slightly less than half of the total bill.
As of 4 p.m., council had trimmed $166,500 from its budget by eliminating this year’s staff for the visitor information centre on Front Road, declining to buy more GPS units for maintenance vehicles and cutting human resource overtime.
Earlier Tuesday, CAO Mike Phipps laid out a plan to cut $443,715 in service reductions and increase revenues by $331,000 by boosting fees and service charges. The bulk of the revenue would come from charging a garbage collection fee. He also presented a proposal to sell about $1 million in town property to replenish drained reserves.
The town has $38 million in debt with another $15 million in unfunded debt. Much of the debt went to pay for the new sewer plant. While water and sewer rates both increased five per cent last year, they have yet to be set for this year.
Despite some moaning that cutting the council’s portion of the budget would hinder communication with constituents, council did trim $30,000, but kept $15,000 to pay cell phone and Internet bills. The town has already spent $2,100 on registration fees for conferences. Councillors also cut the staff Christmas party, although they did hold one in 2013 long after the town’s financial problems came to light.
“I don’t think (cutting travel) for one year is really going to hurt us,” Coun. Bob Pillon said.
Council refused to axe crossing guards to save $38,000, kept the Santa Claus parade at a cost of $15,000 and was unable to eliminate the heritage rebate program that costs the town $15,000 annually. Council also refused to close the Lions Pool for a savings of $44,000 or chop $30,000 in grants to charitable organizations.
“This service aids in personal safety,” Coun. John Sutton said of the $38,000 spent on crossing guards for four months of the school year. “We could kiss our insurance savings goodbye with one incident. It will be sheer lunacy to eliminate this.”
Pillon said providing charitable grants made sense because the recipient organizations like the House of Shalom help local youth. Coun. Carolyn Davies said the organization’s like the North American Black Historical Museum are core community groups and not frivolous.
Council gave a preliminary nod to selling the Malden Community Centre, but won’t take action until the lease with its tenant, a Doll House Museum, expires in November. The town estimated it could get $250,000 for the property once it goes to market. As well, council hopes to get $30,000 for old arena equipment like glass and the scoreboard and $250,000 for the former water town property and the St. Arnaud right-of-way. Councillors rejected selling a fire truck from Station 3 because it was only five years old.
Council did agree to move ahead with new development fees for commercial and industry projects. Once a new bylaw is written and passed, developers will have to pay a two per cent parkland fee and a development fee of 50 per cent of the residential rate for commercial and industrial land.
Councillors weren’t able to agree on major revenue generating ideas.
They rejected the proposal to charge for garbage bag collection and declined to raise ice rental fees at the Libro Centre because it would have made the facility the second most expensive in the county. They did approve increasing the tax certificate fee, charging for carrying costs of drainage projects and collecting additional supplemental tax revenue. Those items along with parkland fees are projected to bring in $41,000.
Council will meet on April 24 to continue budget deliberations.
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