The City of Vernon will be sharpening its pencils when developing the 2011 budget. Council decided Tuesday to try and target a zero per cent tax increase as part of the upcoming budget deliberations.“A lot of citizens have had a really rough year,” said Coun. Mary-Jo O’Keefe. “I expect the budget to reflect that. We haven’t come out of the recession as fast as we thought.” Coun. Jack Gilroy says that increases in previous years may allow the city to hold the line in 2011. “Everyone on council wants to hit that mark,” he said. “I think we can get to zero and still keep the city running.” However, there are some reservations about the possible impact a tax freeze would have on the city’s activities. “It means we’ll be making some very difficult decisions in the process,” said Coun. Buffy Baumbrough. “I don’t want to back off our commitments on the official community plan.” And specifically, Baumbrough believes there is a need to keep expanding alternate modes of transportation such as transit. “We don’t want to say no, no, no to everything just because we’re targeting zero per cent,” she said. Coun. Shawn Lee sees zero per cent as a worthwhile goal, but forecasts that the ultimate tax increase may be something slightly over zero. “There are always things that come up and we can’t ignore. We’re running a city here,” he said.
Staff has suggested that council give three readings to the proposed budget bylaw in early 2011, prior to the official public input session. That hasn’t gone over well with Coun. Bob Spiers. “The public input should become before third reading. It sends the signal we’re going to ignore them,” he said. However, Mayor Wayne Lippert is quick to defend the public process the city has followed in recent years, including allowing residents to provide feedback at a series of working sessions.“The public has had more opportunities to speak. We have had more public input than ever before,” he said. There was a 1.9 per cent residential tax increase in Vernon in 2010.
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