Victoria city council has submitted a list of questions to its staff hoping to find some savings or new ways of doing business ahead of this spring’s budget discussion.
The initial list of 27 queries exploring everything from the potential impact of changing tax rates to city spending on festivals was pared down to 18, as questions deemed too political or time-consuming for staff were removed after sometimes testy deliberations.
At one point, Mayor Marianne Alto gave council members a 10-minute “time out” and threatened a second one.
The final list includes looking at the impact of capping property-tax increases at inflation (currently they are capped at inflation plus one per cent), making industrial property tax rates comparable to non-industrial commercial rates, adding funding to the festival grant program, and imposing a nominal payment on use of the downtown bike valet service.
There are also questions about the impact of accelerating the addition of Indigenous place names on road signs and reducing expansion plans for the bike-lane network.
The questions also delve into why the city’s finance and IT departments are facing significant budget increases in 2024 – 11.56 per cent and 17.69 per cent respectively.
Additions to the initial list include determining the impact of adding a $30,000 grant for the Sanctuary Youth Centre, how the city could increase the number of trees planted on city land without triggering a tax increase and potential impacts of eliminating permissive tax exemptions for religious groups that do not hold charitable status.
Alto said Thursday’s debate is likely to trigger some council member motions in the new year that will ask to review several city policies, such as the city’s grants policy, how it handles cash reserves, how it caps tax increases and how it funds community associations.
“I think these issues have come up repeatedly and are worthy of at least some consideration as we look forward,” she said.
The first draft of the city’s 2024 budget, released last month, included a tax increase of 8.37 per cent next year for property owners.
The early draft, which will be tweaked before being adopted in April, includes a $328-million operating budget and $82.6-million capital budget. It would mean a $248 tax increase for the average household and a $640 tax increase for the typical business.
The proposed budget is up $12.33 million from the 2023 version. The bulk of the tax increase is due to inflationary costs, which add 5.86 per cent to the property tax bill, and the $72-million budget proposed by the Vic PD. Victoria is responsible for 86.3 per cent of the Vic PD budget, which would add a 2.4 per cent increase to the tax bill if approved.
