Despite second go round on sharing Budget tax decrease, Council holds firm on 2% decision

Councillor Mirau made one more plea of Council to address one percent
of this years tax decrease towards downtown improvement themes

Councillor Blair Mirau made one more attempt to talk his fellow council members into shaving one percent of the two percent property tax decrease from the financial planning, this time to redirect one percent towards downtown improvement options.

The debate ended much the same as the previous one of one week ago, with Council deciding to stay the course, but not after another lively discussion on the new motion, framed by some additional information provided by the City's Chief Financial Officer Corinne Bomben.

To assist the Council members in their final considerations, Ms. Bomben highlighted the financial call of the other taxing authorities, North Coast Regional District, Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional Hospital District and Northwest Regional Hospital District, and what they will be pulling from your tax bill this year;

North Coast Regional District an increase of 43,000 dollars from last year, with the extra funds required owing to increased costs, reduced rental revenue and lower recycling sales.

Northwest Regional Hospital District has a requisition of an additional 130,000 dollars  this year over last year, principally related to the business plan for Mills Memorial Hospital and the carry over of some major projects from 2018.

She then reviewed the terms of the City of Prince Rupert 2019 Property Tax Bylaw which will provide for a 2 Percent decrease to the municipal tax rate. 

That set the stage for Council to then be asked by the CFO to give the first three readings to each of the Bylaws to further the process of the 2019 Budget.

Mayor Brain then invited members of Council to offer  up their comments related to the 2019 Budget and Financial Plan.  The comments from Council members were as follows:

Councillor Mirau led off the discussion once again, bringing back to the table a request that Council consider splitting the two percent tax decrease, with one percent remaining as is and offering a cut to the tax rate, while this time suggesting that Council use the other one percent towards downtown capital improvements.

Mr. Mirau reviewed some of the discussion from last week and the range of opinions that Council members expressed during the course of it, then he turned to the unknowns that council can face during the course of a year and how there is a need to put money towards something specific in this case downtown improvements, which is where he put his renewed focus towards in his second presentation.

Towards that financing, he recommended that Council split the 2 per cent tax decrease, with one percent to be taken off property taxes for this year and the other 1 per cent to be used for downtown improvement plans.

On the opportunity ahead that Council has to lower taxes, Mr. Mirau observed:

"Rarely do we have the opportunity to both reduce taxes and invest extra money in infrastructure, if I had told you five years ago that we could cut taxes by one percent and our roads budget by thirty percent you guys would have taken that deal in a heart beat. So I don't want us to get caught up in a moment in time that just because we can we should. I think we should do the most prudent which is to invest in the assets we know that are deteriorating.

He posed a question for Council to consider asking to think on the concept of asking the public:

"If we were to poll home and business owners and ask them would you rather save an average of 14 dollars a year on your taxes or have thirty percent move paving done"

Mr. Mirau  then speculated that the answer would be that everyone would want to see substantial improvement to infrastructure, relative to the amount of money that they average home owner would be saving.

He added that if Council believes that every little bit counts for reducing taxes then every little bit counts in reducing the infrastructure deficit by the same token.

In response, much of the same territory of last week's lengthy discussion was covered by the other Council members who spoke often of the opportunity to send a signal to the taxpayers and to begin to shift the tax burden off the residents.

The main theme of commentary from each of the council members included:

Councillor Niesh  --  "It is  in my mind more important to shift the other way and to start shifting the taxes off the residents and the only way were going to do that is by not being greedy ... rather than take more I think we should use that money to decrease the taxes, because I feel that our taxes are so much higher than other communities already and we need to shift that back again"

Councillor Randhawa -- "We already are investing in infrastructure this year ... other communities are already increasing their taxes, but they are trying to catch us ... also our residents still pay extra 3 percent on utility fees, 5 percent on recreation fees so their expenses have already gone up"

Councillor Skelton Morven -- "Part of the main reasons why I ran for council was to alleviate the taxes on small business owners, as well as our residents, because we pay some of the highest taxes in the country at the time, so at this time I am still in favour of decreasing by two percent"

Councillor Cunningham -- "I totally disagree with this, first of all I agree our downtown needs revitalization but I don't see why we're going to take one percent against the general population and put it into one specific area, light industry, businesses all need a break ...  You're missing one little point with all this. Our CFO just told us that the other taxes are going up, School,  Regional District and Regional District Hospital Board, this two percent helps absorb those other taxes going "

Councillor Adey --  "First of all I would stand by much of what I said last time on this and I won't repeat myself, there is one other point ... We know that the process that we've gone through involves a number of meetings and a number of times that we revisit these things but I don't know that a lot of people out there understand that ... there may be people who maybe feel that this is the here again gone again tax that got pulled out from under the rug, I don't think that's an argument by itself, but it's a point that hasn't been made, I think that the other arguments are the one that should carry the day"

Mr. Mirau offered one more push towards his motion observing:

"I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't disappointed, the ultimate reason that I'm disappointed is actually  because you guys have all chosen to very conveniently ignore the logic that I've just laid out and you've repeated it back to me ... the only thing I can respond to here, is again the disconnect is I"m not proposing a tax increase, I think you guys are trying to paint me as greedy and trying to take,in fact what I"m trying to give people what they want, which is a revitalized downtown which is something that we've debated for years on end"

Mayor Brain offered up some conciliatory notes on Mr. Mirau's frustrations and then noted that there are plans ahead for addressing the needs of the downtown core.

"Just for one comment from me is around the downtown and I appreciate what you are trying to do here, but we know that Redesign Rupert is going to be taking on a major initiative with the downtown and the waterfront, as well recruitment and retention and I know more is going to be coming out publicly around what the process is going to look like for that. And for me I'd rather see a coordinated approach towards that and the reality is that it's going to be millions and millions and millions of dollars for those improvements to be made"

As for the status of the tax reduction, the Mayor offered up a short observation:

"Just due to where we are at we need to start the process of lowering it and whether it's one or two, I think two is more significant and starts the process"

After a few more comments from around the Chamber, the near thirty two minutes of discussion, Council defeated Mr. Mirau's second attempt to change the taxation ratio, holding to the original plan of the two percent cut.

You can review the full exchange on the budget discussion from the City's video archive, the budget process opens the Monday evening session.

For a wider overview of the discussion see our Council Timeline feature.

More items of note related to City Council Discussions can be explored from our Council Archive page here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.