Driven largely by increased labour costs, Saanich residents could face a tax increase of more than eight per cent next year, according to budget guidelines approved for 2024.
The guidelines, which provide the basis for next year’s budget process, paint an ugly picture of increased costs in a preliminary budget with few frills.
Director of finance Paul Arslan told council it is another status quo budget, which will come hard on the heels of this year’s budget that led to a 7.19 per cent increase for the average property-tax bill.
While it’s very early in the budgeting process, and plenty can and will change before the budget is approved next spring, Saanich Mayor Dean Murdock said council now has a snapshot of where things are headed.
“It’s a shocking projection. And I don’t think it’s one anybody around the table feels comfortable with,” he said. “So, certainly it begins to form part of the assessment when decisions are made about programs and infrastructure.”
Murdock couldn’t say if there are plans that will be derailed as a result of the sobering budget news, but he did say it will colour all spending discussions for the next several months.
“I think it presents the reality of the cost of delivering on programs and infrastructure,” he said. “The major elements of what council wants to pursue remain the same, but I think that when it comes to the specifics on how we deliver it, I think that it does inform or at least it becomes a major lens through which we view how we’re going to achieve that.
“We’ll have to make decisions about whether those things get scaled back, whether they get deferred or whether there are big chunks that we bite off now and leave other pieces for later.”
The early budget laid out for council showed a spending increase of nearly $13 million projected for 2024, which would translate into a tax increase of 8.03 per cent.
The biggest cost driver is labour, which represents 57.7 per cent of the general operating budget and will account for an estimated expenditure increase of at least $8.9 million next year.
In early budgeting for Saanich police, the cost increase could be nine per cent, while the capital budget is expected to increase by four per cent.
“It’s not great news,” said Coun. Judy Brownoff.
Brownoff said things can change significantly and she expects Saanich staff to be able to find efficiencies.
Coun. Zac de Vries said there are a lot of pressures on the budget including a growing population and more demand for municipal services in an inflationary environment.
“Those are realities that we need to grapple with. Residents in Saanich enjoy a very high level of service per capita, they also have increasing expectations and needs,” he said. “And there’s a cost to doing that.
“In many ways I think that this number’s not necessarily a surprise when you look at the history and unfortunately I think this estimate is one that’s only going to go up given these pressures that we have around key priority areas and investments that unfortunately are getting more expensive than we had hoped for.”
To deal with the rising costs, the budget guidelines include measures like ensuring municipal departments spend no more in 2024 than they did in 2023, while council will consider budget cuts to find savings and trim the expected tax increase.
“Certainly nobody wants to receive a big increase on their tax bill,” said Murdock, adding council is only too well aware of the cost pressures already being felt by Saanich residents.
“We want to try and limit the impact that ends up going onto the tax bill.”
>>> To comment on this article, write a letter to the editor: [email protected]
