Huntsville Town Council is proposing a 6.97 per cent increase to the local tax levy to fund the 2016 budget. In terms of dollar amount, that equals about $15 on a $100,000 assessment. The final decision will be made at Council’s regular meeting on January 25, 2016.
Further, the Town treasurer is predicting a 2.7 per cent increase to the overall tax bill when all levels of government are factored in (District and education).
On Monday morning, Deputy Mayor Karin Terziano took council through a slide presentation to highlight some of the changes to the budget.
Not surprisingly, the department receiving the biggest boost is roads. The 2016 capital roads budget will increase by $400,000 with the intention of committing an additional $400,000 in each of the following two years. This will bring the roads and bridges commitment through property tax, grants and gas tax to just short of three million dollars by the end of this term of ouncil.
According Jason Krynicki, Executive Director of Transporation Infrastructure, $100,000 in spending translates roughly to one kilometer of road rehabilitation.
The 2016 budget also includes a $115,000 increase to the non-unionized employee pay grid and a $99,421 repayment to reserves to cover the Ironman Muskoka losses from 2015.
The Waterloo Centre for the Environment continues to be a costly asset for the Town to manage. The revenue projection in the 2016 budget is $97,974 with staffing and operational costs coming in at $256,026. Mayor Aitchison is hopeful that on-going negotiations with a new tenant will come to fruition before the end of 2016 and help the bottom line.
The Huntsville Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce didn’t get what they were hoping for. They will be receiving $32,000 in fees for service down from $84,000 from last year. According to Chamber Executive Director Kelly Haywood, this will have a huge impact on the work the Chamber is able to do to promote Huntsville. The Town is holding a public meeting on January 19 to discuss events tourism and marketing. Haywood will be making a presentation and is encouraging people to attend. “Fundamentally, anyone who is involved in community marketing and wants to see Huntsville continue to move forward needs to be at the meeting.”
Mayor Scott Aitchison commended Deputy Mayor Karin Terziano and the budget sub-committee on the work they did. At one point in the process the draft budget sat at a 9.02 per cent increase.
“Kudos to Karin and your team. Councillor Stone and Councillor Thompson are on that budget committee as well, and our senior staff. Regardless of whatever spin is put on this by others, this is a remarkable achievement and you are to be congratulated and thanked very much.”
Very few comments or “spin” for this story. I wonder why? Seems like a $15/$100,000.00 tax levy is quite minimal given the ever increasing property (land & building) values in Muskoka: as promoted & sought after by many “real estate” advertisers on Doppler. Even Toronto is beginning to examine their “tax” system & re-defining (though they need to go further) it based on overall Value (in the market place) of properties…