City Budget Goes Down

Written by Peter McIntyre  107.5 KISSFM Wednesday, 13 February 2013 06:01
  Vernon council has trimmed $139,000 from this year's budget. Most of the savings come from using reserves instead of getting new funds from taxpayers. Councillor Bob Spiers says it lowers the tax hike about a half point, to 4.1 percent, part of which will be used for infrastructure upgrades. "I have no problems trying to build up money for infrastructure, but then we turned around and used all that money on what I would call Pleasantville projects, therefore I can't support that budget," says Spiers. Spiers is referring to the next phases of the Polson Greenway and downtown revitalization which he would like put off until later. Council has given three readings to its budget bylaw which now carries a 45 dollar increase for the average home, down a few bucks. Mayor Rob Sawatzky says more than 120-thousand in savings came from using reserve accounts. "There were reserves built up for certain reasons, so if you built those up, for example with the RCMP, why not use those for that?" Council also agreed with a Finance Committee recommendation to reduce the combined council meeting pay allotment by $10,000 for 2013. That's used to compensate council members who have to miss work for meetings, but very little of it was used last year. With the changes, the city's tax increase stands at around 4.1 percent, down from the earlier 4.7.