0% Tax Increase Update
By Diane Colley-Urquhart on September 8 2016
With Council soon to be in session following the summer break, many of the issues brought forth to Council leading up to summer was the tax debate. For weeks prior to the Strategic Meeting of Council on June 27th I asked what it would look like if property taxes were not raised to the proposed 4.7 percent (through ActionPlan), and instead, somewhere between zero and 3.2 percent.
On June 11th I held my Mobile Town Hall to help me get a better understanding of the needs of my constituents. The event gave me a forum to hear your concerns and your feedback helped to open my eyes to the needs of our Ward.
With the notion of a zero percent tax increase, services would have to be re-examined, adjusted, and possibly even cut. After speaking with my constituents, as well as my fellow Calgarians outside of Ward 13, I’m seeing more and more of an understanding that to see some sort of tax relief, it would mean a less strict quality of service target for City services. Although answers to which services citizens would lessen or cut altogether is a different story. That’s the million dollar question.
So can we afford to keep these satisfaction levels (tracked through citizen satisfaction surveys, specifically Ward 13), and do we need to? What happens if we just come down to 85 percent or 80 percent satisfaction in times when the economy is in the ditch? We don’t know where or when this downturn will resolve itself.
When City Council approved the Four-Year Budget in 2014, financially, it was a much more optimistic and different time. Our City’s economic outlook was prosperous. Much has changed and we need to change with them. In our current financial situation, City Council approved a vote to utilize the City’s Fiscal Stability Reserve Fund, to be used in times of need.
With the economic downturn felt in our City, we as your elected officials need to make decisions that help to not only sustain us but to ensure prosperity in the future, while also giving credit to Administration in finding efficiencies that have already saved our City tens of millions of dollars.
It all comes down to the essentials. What is really, really needed, as opposed to what would be nice to have? I want to hear from you on this, so I invite you to please email my office and let me continue to be your voice at City Council.
Useful property tax links:
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