City Council should adopt targeted taxation control
The speculation about a 14.2% property tax increase is absolutely frightening. The cost of living has skyrocketed, grocery prices have soared, mortgage rates are at a generational high, food bank use is up 40%, and the homelessness rate in Hamilton is up 50% since the onset of the pandemic. City Council needs to exercise some prudent political judgement. I will absolutely oppose a rate hike of this nature, should that come to Council. That said, we’re not there yet. Budget deliberations have not even begun.
This number is coming from a staff report received by Council this week. City Council is at the beginning of the protracted budget process. Typically, the start of said process is City Council’s receipt of a staff-generated estimate of the totality of all potential City spending for the following fiscal year. It makes major, intentional assumptions about spending levels. For example, this report assumes all deferred items/decisions will be incorporated into a new budget, that all relevant costs will increase by an inflationary measure, and that all current spending continues unchecked, if not increased, to reflect any potential service or program decisions that may come. This gives Council a point at which to begin to layer in priorities and make choices, which eventually set a budget.
Still though, why is a staff report of this nature suggesting such a high number? Here's the bottom line, because of Ontario's Bill 23 (the Greenbelt carve out), municipalities are now on the hook for (literally) billions of dollars. Specifically, somewhere in the neighbourhood of $8.2 billion a year in costs will be transferred from private sector developers to property taxpayers - it's preposterous. I strongly encourage outraged residents, to write to your respective MPP and ask why they support a plan that sees our taxes increase, as a direct consequence of giving land developers the lucrative gift of not having to pay for cost of development.
For my part, I am advocating to my Council colleagues to adopt targeted taxation control. I have a motion on the agenda for September 27, asking City Council to bind itself to a municipally generated property tax increase cap of 4%. I believe we need to focus on value for taxation, and then cut the cloth to fit. To hear more about that proposal, please visit my Linktree where you can find a podcast of my recent AM900 CHML interview on that issue, as well as the latest from the Hamilton Spectator on the same topic.
