Average Penticton homeowner faces $21 tax hike

Bruce Walkinshaw - Penticton Western News Published: April 29, 2010 6:00 PM

Penticton council voted 4-3 to approve a five-year financial plan Wednesday morning that will raise civic taxes by 2.5 per cent in 2010. The increase will mean an extra $21 a year in municipal property taxes on an average home valued at $343,000, plus an extra $6 a year for increased garbage and recycling fees. With the increase in taxes — along with the many expenses, programs, projects and grants council has frozen, reduced or eliminated during this year’s lengthy budget process — the City of Penticton’s structural deficit as of Wednesday afternoon (it fluctuates) has been reduced to $141,000, down from $1.2 million. “We have debated this for probably four-plus months,” said Coun. Andrew Jakubeit, before voting for the budget. “At the end of the day, for a $21 increase for the average household ... (the budget) is a true compromise of the ideas, directions and passions that everyone participated in.” Coun. Garry Litke said that he was originally opposed to the budget because it relies on profits from the electrical utility in order to balance the city’s operating budget — thus the structural deficit. “I didn’t see that as sustainable,” explained Litke. “However, since that time, we have had the core services review. We now have a long-range economic plan for carrying us forward for the next three years. And I’m feeling comfortable with that plan. “Because of the financial strait that we are in, it appears that everybody in this community is going to have to suffer some pain. So, staff has felt some pain. We’ve had some tough decisions to make in the past. The users of city facilities are going to suffer some pain as fees increase slightly ... and the taxpayers are going to have to suffer a bit of an increase too.”Councillors Judy Sentes and Mike Pearce also supported the budget.Pearce said that despite the city having to pay for additional costs that were out of their control, such as the leak in the convention centre or money for new BC Transit buses, he thought council had done a good job holding the line on spending.

Councillors Dan Albas and John Vassilaki voted against the budget because they said they thought more items could have been cut out of the budget. “I have many, many, many concerns (regarding) the amount of money we are going to spend in such a bleak situation that we find ourselves financially,” said Vassilaki. “I think we are spending probably close to $1.5 million that we do not need to spend on this budget.” Mayor Dan Ashton voted against the budget because he said he thought the tax increase should be capped at 1.9 per cent, with the remaining money coming from an increase in various user fees correlated to the rise in costs of the services the fees are charged for.