Vernon's new mayor has made good on one of his election promises. Mayor Robert Sawatzky has said thanks, but no thanks to a $3,000 increase in his yearly wage. "It was a symbolic gesture. It was a promise I made during the campaign
and I like to do what I say I'm going to do," says Sawatzky. "In absolute terms it isn't very much. It's an indication to everyone
that we try to do what we say we're going to do and we're kind of all in
the tough times together." Sawatzky says out of the $60M municipal budget it doesn't really save the taxpayers a whole lot. He says the rest of council also followed suit. "They turned down their own committee raise and they made sure their
unused committee funding is targeted towards a Community Grants Fund." The gesture by council came as they began pouring over the municipality's 2012 budget. While Sawatzky says it would be nice to hold the line and present the
taxpayers a zero increase budget, the reality is that may not be
possible. The new mayor says two items have been brought to council's attention which may make a tax increase inevitable. Sawatzky says one of those is retroactive pay for fire fighters. That will add 1% to the budget. The other is a pavement maintenance system. "It isn't very exciting but the fact is if water gets through our
pavement or roads, a dollar we don't spend now on cracks, sealing and
maintenance in a very short time costs you between $4 and $14 to do
repairs." Sawatzky says the city is looking at a $1.3M pavement management
system, which, if deferred, will cost a whole lot more down the road. "That's a huge elephant in the room that we'll have to come to grips with." That would amount to between a 4% and 5% tax increase by itself. Council of course still has the ability to trim in other areas if it wishes in order to keep any tax increase to a minimum.
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