Tax increase pared down to 2.83% ! More decreases to come ??? 0% Tax Increase within grasp.

Thursday's Finance Meeting:
The Financial Staff was tasked with reducing the 6.81% council budget that was increased by council with various new programs back to no more than a 2.84% increase. They succeeded and will be recommending a budget that will come in at 2.83% at the next Council meeting. The target was $588,858 of net reductions.

Some of the methods used included reducing budgeted expenses for line items such as snow removal by $40,000 (knowing that they still had adequate reserves leftover from prior years), $30,000 in wage items where the built in default of 3% for CPI was reduced to its actual of 1.4%. These two items were part of the cuts found in departmental spending of about $274,000.There was $175,000 found to be available from the increased assessments re new growth and one of the major add on projects along 29th st at $100,400 will be financed from an existing reserve. (Casino Reserve Fund). They also decided to dip into the 2006 operating reserve that was estimated to be $780,000 for $40,000.

There was much debate centering on whether to toss out the $300,000 from the budget for Airport Reserves in 2007. The suggestion to leave this out and to await the business Plan from the Airport Committee in March or April on justification for the $415,627 for Taxiway Charlie, was thrown around and came very close to a vote. The suggestion that this money could be financed through borrowing rather than immediate taxation was well received. However, no formal vote was taken and the Treasurer has this $300,000 still in the budget that now stands at a 2.83% tax increase. I'm sure this suggestion to remove it and go to debt financing be resurrected at the next council meeting.

Remember, this $300,000 represents 2.04% in taxes and we could decrease tax increase needed to roughly .79% or about $118,000.

Contrary to what you will find in the Moringstar's article on page 7 "The remainder of the money required will come from a surplus" referring to $314,858 after $274,000 in departmental cuts, is incorrect. Only $40,000 is coming from the $780,000 2006 Reserve.

I expect the remaining $740,000 will be sliced and diced as happened in 2006 and allocated to various reserves and pet projects of the day. This meeting will happen at an upcoming Finance meeting and I'll post on these results at that time.

Perhaps by slapping $118,000 towards 2007 taxes from last years operating surplus we could have a 0% increase in taxes budget and be unique in the Province.

By the way there still is a 4.5% increase in Fire Specified Area Taxes.

The OUTFALL system valued at $3,395,161 on Vernon's books should be fully paid after 2007 and this item will disappear from your Tax Bill if you were one of the lucky ones who was paying for it the last 20 years.