In Victoria, taxpayers could get lower increases

Victoria councillors may be able to find some relief for local property taxpayers when they finalize the city’s budget on Thursday, says Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps.

Combined with utility fees, the overall property tax increase to homeowners would be 2.91 per cent or $86 on the average home assessed at $504,000, and 2.98 per cent or $216 on the average businesses assessed at $500,000.

Council had earlier proposed an overall property tax increase of 3.09 per cent on an operating budget of $213 million.

After weeks of public consultation, councillors hope to finalize the city’s budget Thursday.

They have the opportunity to reduce that tax lift even further by using some of an unallocated $4.68 million in surplus and new assessment revenue.

Helps said she has asked each councillor to provide budget priorities.

“There are proposals [from councillors] to spend $250,000 more on affordable housing all the way to $750,000 more. There are proposals to put $500,000 of the surplus toward tax relief all the way to putting $1.75 million toward tax relief,” Helps said. “So there’s a whole range of proposals that have come in to me from council.”

Coun. Ben Isitt has proposed increasing the city’s allocation for social housing to $1 million from $250,000 to help address the number of homeless seeking shelter in city parks.

“Both for the people who are homeless and for the broader population, we can’t delay,” he said.

Isitt doesn’t favour further tax relief. “We hear that the public wants us to make progress on things like affordable housing, cycling infrastructure, local food systems, so I think the funds will be better deployed for those purposes,” he said.

“I think that the tax increase that the city is proposing is not unreasonable. It essentially reflects increased costs.”

About 1,500 people completed online surveys, another 250 attended a town hall and another 152 wrote in to offer their views on both the city’s financial plan and how best to align that with its strategic planning document. The level of engagement is light years ahead of last year when only 15 people attended budget information sessions held at city hall, 38 watched via the web and 47 completed surveys.

Survey respondents favour using the unallocated cash to make investments in transportation and enhancing green spaces as top priorities for the $4.68-million of unallocated cash.

City financial staff note that council has already given preliminary approval for $4.9 million for implementation of its bicycle master plan. By allocating a further $2.85 million, that work could be expedited and additional bike lane protection could be built in. The city could tap into $9 million in available funding in the gas tax reserve to fund the improvements, they say.

Of those surveyed, a slight majority (52 per cent) said they agreed with the proposed tax increase while 19.5 per cent felt it should be higher and 28 per cent felt it should be reduced, resulting in reduced services or reduced service levels.

While 12 per cent of respondents said they were very satisfied with programs and services they receive for their tax dollars, 51 per cent were moderately satisfied. At total of 32.6 per cent were either moderately or very dissatisfied and 3.5 per cent were unsure.

When asked about using taxpayer funds to provide dental benefits for city councillors a slight majority (53 per cent) were in favour and 47 per cent were not. Of those who answered yes, the majority said it should be introduced in 2015 and not after the next election in 2019.

Eighty-six per cent of survey respondents said they were from Victoria. Of those, 19 per cent were from Fairfield/Gonzales, 11 per cent from Fernwood, and 10 per cent were from James Bay. Twenty-four per cent said they owned or operated a business in the city. Thirty-eight per cent were under 40 years of age, 32 per cent were between 40 and 59, and 24 per cent were 60 or older.

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