The first public consultation on the Chatham-Kent multi-year 2024-2027 draft budget was held live via the municipality's Facebook page on Wednesday and administration fielded various questions ranging from policing to housing, pensions, and inflation.
Chatham-Kent Police Chief Gary Conn emphasized the higher police budget to include a request for 43 more staff over four years is due to an increased number of service calls, higher crime rate, population growth, and to cover for more officers off on sick leave.
Chatham-Kent Chief Financial Officer Gord Quinton was also asked how the municipality expects those on pensions to pay such a large proposed property tax increase.
Quinton said it's up to council to strike a fair balance, adding that he and other treasurers across Ontario are pushing the provincial government to come up with other revenue tools to fund items such as roads instead of property taxpayers constantly bearing the brunt of those costs, which he calls unfair.
"The property taxpayer in my opinion is being forced to take on more than they should. It'll be up to council to weigh whether these increases are affordable to the public or whether they want to provide direction to reduce levels of service to lower the costs," said Quinton.
Quinton added provincial governments in other parts of Canada pay for a bigger share of roads and others things.
Quinton said he doesn't expect the average 7.82 per cent budget increase to change much over the next four years even if inflation comes down because there are other costs coming down the line, such as an organic waste diversion program being mandated by the province next year, and some municipal projects that were deferred because of the high cost of doing business in the current economy.
"Ontario municipalities overall, not just Chatham-Kent, we're all being faced with all these, I won't call them downloads, but more costs than ever before," Quinton said.
Quinton also explained that multi-residential property owners will catch up to residential property owners eventually and pay their fair share of taxes after being asked why there's such a large gap between multi-residential property owners who only pay four per cent of the municipal tax levy currently while residential property owners pay 63 per cent.
Chatham-Kent General Manager of Health and Family Services April Rietdyk said the municipal budget will have a program to help struggling residents with their rent by providing subsidies to top-up their rent as part of a housing strategy.
Chatham-Kent General Manager of Corporate Services and Chief Human Resource Officer Cathy Hoffman told one resident that freezing staff wages to lower the tax burden is difficult to do because the municipality must honour labour contracts and must continue to strive to attract top talent to the administration to be competitive.
The proposed annual 7.82 per cent increase means an extra $294 on the tax bill of an average household assessed at $176,000.
Budget Chair and Councillor Brock McGregor said the proposed increase for 2024 is 6.57 per cent (four per cent due to inflation pressures, 1.5 per cent in infrastructure spending, 0.8 per cent for police services, and 0.27 per cent for other municipal spending).
Chatham-Kent's draft capital budget has $227 million in expenses over the next four years, including $83 million for replacing and repaving roads, $72.6 million for bridges, and $18.5 for municipal facilities and recreation spaces.
McGregor said Chatham-Kent homeowners pay an average of $3,000 per year in property taxes, which is the low end when compared to other communities of similar size.
Quinton noted several municipalities are coming in with double-digit budget increases because everything is more expensive.
Another public consultation will take place on Chatham-Kent's Facebook live feed on Thursday, November 23, 2023 from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.
The first budget deliberation is set for Tuesday, November 28 at 6 p.m. before council finalizes and approves the budget at a later date.
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