Striking the right balance between spending and saving is always a challenge.
But the decrease in property tax for Jasperites this year will ripple through the community as service cuts set in.
In March, council was set to approve a 5.3 per cent property tax increase, about a $7 increase per $100,000 assessed value for residential properties, so an increase of $70 for a property worth $1 million.
Then the pandemic hit.
Councillors, unsure of Jasperites’ ability to pay their taxes and wanting to give us a break, decided tax rates should not be increased this year, so the budget had to shrink.
But then it had to shrink again when they voted for taxes to be decreased by 12 per cent this year.
The ‘zero budget’ - a zero per cent increase in the tax rate - would have brought in $7.98 million from taxes. Council voted to bring in $7 million - a seemingly random number.
It’s tens of dollars of savings for Jasper households but nearly a million dollars in cuts for the municipality - not to mention the extra potential $800,000 of lost revenue from facility closures.
Councillor Butler described the budget cut process as “gut wrenching” this Tuesday.
Was it worth 100 bucks of savings for property owners in town?
Savings that are going to have to be made up in following years, too.
Councillors did not mince their words this week: “This is one year only. Taxes will go up next year.”
And it’s likely to be a big increase to make up for 2020.
The fitness and aquatic centre and activity centre can’t open until public health orders allow, but whenever that is, will the municipality be able to afford to reopen them?
Throughout this process our mayor, Richard Ireland, has talked about recovery - and putting Jasper in a position to reopen at the other end of this pandemic. He and councillor Scott Wilson voted for less of a tax decrease - and I agree.
These cuts run deep.
And while we are saving money in the short term, we will see the butterfly effect down the road.
Councillors are trying to do right for their community, but this difficult process and its outcomes are a little hard to swallow.
Would you prefer to pay a little extra to keep more services in place? Is it worth it?
Fuchsia Dragon
[email protected]
Article: Massive service and workforce cuts to go ahead in Jasper to cover 2020 property tax decrease
