When Huntsville Council meets at a Special General Committee meeting on December 12, 2023, it will have to start chipping away at its draft 2024 consolidated budget, which is currently sitting at a whopping 15.26 per cent tax increase.
That tax increase would translate into an additional $196 on your tax bill per $300,000 of property assessment value. The Town draft 2024 consolidated budget includes a levy increase for 2024 of $3,494,142. The total levy proposed for 2024 of $22,902,198 includes $230,000 of ongoing funding for the Local Hospital Share.
The draft budget also includes assessment growth of approximately $106M, which has already been used to offset the proposed increases.
“MPAC was initially scheduled to release updated assessment data in 2020 which was expected to result in significant assessment values. The release of this assessment has been delayed further and is now not expected to be released until further notice by the Province of Ontario. As a result, only assessment changes related to new growth will be realized for 2024 and at this time is estimated at $106M,” states the Town in the budget and finances section of its website.
Following discussions on December 12, budget discussions will return on January 11, 2024.
“Town Staff look forward to the December 12 discussions where Council will have their first chance to hear the budgetary report with staff recommendations and to publicly discuss the Draft Budget,” said Denise Corry, Chief Administrative Officer at the Town, in a press release.
“The Town’s budget is not immune to factors such as inflation, increasing costs, and growth, resulting in a higher proposed tax rate than previous years,” also stated Julia McKenzie, Director of Financial Services and Treasurer at the Town of Huntsville. “The Town has endeavored to provide consistent tax rates during pandemic and post-pandemic years to minimize the financial impact to residents. Our proposed tax rate continues to give Huntsville one of the most competitive municipal tax rates in the province for a town of our size.”
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The draft budget had been delivered and mayor and council sat looking at their copies. No one seemed sure as to what emotion should be evident. There was a pause, then someone ventured: “15.6%. Does that seem right? Too low? Too high?”
Somebody chuckled.
“Bank rates have been rising like crazy. But not 15%”
“But, like a few points at a time. Up to about 5% or so now. But not 15%”
“How about groceries. Big stores charging more every day. Big prices and smaller containers. Try to buy a piece of beef and you feel like you just bought a farm. More for less.”
“And it seems we are paying more for everything we have to do.” We paid a lot for that ‘New Brand’. What happened with that?”
“We did Kent Park (aka Tombstone territory) and then that 2-holer. Yah! Yah! I know we got that free but it doesn’t seem like it was.”
“And remember we’ll have a lot of ‘unbudgeted items. Or I imagine we will. We seem to have anyway. Remember that ‘Listen up Council commentary in May?”
“Yes. But even with all the extras, it seems that the 2023 budget still topped out about 6 and a half percent. Not quite 15%.”
“So is it a lot or a little? 15%.”
“Well it’s just a draft. Let’s go home. Get the lights.”
A little mouse that had been listening from the seats shrugged and thought: “Sheesh! Even I know 15.6% is a hell of a lot.”
And as a senior, who has paid a lot of taxes over the years, I agree with the mouse. You bet your ass 15.6% is a lot.
15.26 % is an absolutely irresponsible starting point for any budget discussions (even if it is the combined rate with Education and District). What was Council’s direction to staff for a potential increase going into the budget preparation process? If it was any where close to what is published in this article, that is irresponsible of council. If there was no direction to staff, why not? How could a CAO even allow this to go to council?
Any responsible CAO and Council should never accept any proposed increase to exceed singled digits let alone be above inflation without extraordinary circumstances, and that would not include anything related to MPAC delays as it has been know for some time it was going to be delayed. That is what future planning by the Treasurer, CAO and the senior management team are responsible for.
Taxes need to keep up with a growing community and staff deserve to be paid fairly in order to keep the town running smoothly. However, if one looks into the details of this budget (directors office sections) you will see an egregious raise for each of the directors 50K+ while the rest of staff are left behind comparator municipalities during a time of rising costs. 50K is a little steep considering all factors.
Perhaps the Council should apply a 15.26% cut in staffing and look at a similar percentage in reducing in non- essential services in an effort to reduce the proposed budget.
This is a crazy tax hike. No one but government workers get raises to cover 15% tax hike all at once. Where is the money going? The town gives away property for building for free. My family of contractors dont get free land and are actually held up waiting for ever increasing costs of permits. The town needs to share where this money is going and why the big hike when people are struggling now.
I think before anyone can jump down councils throat, read the budget cover to cover, highlight and make note of what you’d cut. We want low taxes, but we also want increased levels of service, we want the town to continue to “go outside their lane” and venture into other levels of governments areas of responsibility. We can’t have it both ways, if we want increased services, we have to pay for them. As to the reassessments, I have gotten my reassessment, it’s gone down from 2012, so I think before we criticize we need to offer solutions.
According to Google: locals over 65 years of age are our largest age group in Huntsville – 5,255 individuals who may have a fixed income without cost of living increases or regular government pension increases. That’s 27% of our 19,000 population. 5% is even too much. Work on the budget over your holiday and come back with new numbers.
The hospital levy is a must in the budget.
Once upon a time in 1998 there was a Huntsville Ratepayers Association with a committee to review each budget line by line to find reasonable expenses as well as excesses. Who does that now???
Wow. Like our property taxes aren’t high enough already. To even think of starting from a position requiring a 15% increase (even if it does get whittled down a bit), to be applied all at once in a single year, is ridiculous. This kind of annual increase can’t be sustained.
Food for some thought.
The town says that the assessments have not been updated. I wonder why. MPAC has no trouble updating mine in Lake of Bays. Besides the actual MPAC assessment is but one part of the tax fundraising scheme. It is the more or less arbitrary part, the part that often is seen by those assessed as non related to reality. One can use any assessed value base to apply taxes by simply adjusting the tax rate. Having MPAC increase the assessed values is just a sort of back door way to increase tax revenue without the town ever actually having to say it did increase taxes.
MPAC does operate in “strange and inscrutable’ ways however and tends to operate in a slightly different time warp from the rest of us. This may complicate the town’s job.
The town says that “new” assessments from, I assume all the new construction around town (of which there seems to be a lot!) have been factored in already. Are not planning and development fees supposed to cover the extra services needed by new development? That is what Lake of Bays tells me when they charge me over $15,000.00 for a small home construction before they will grant a permit to put a shovel in the dirt.
Then consider the District. Some of the roads in the town are “District roads”. If district wants the glory of owning these roads I assume they will be accepting the cost to maintain them so this should relieve the town itself of a big sum in this area alone.
Garbage, seems to be a District operation too.
In fact, in Lake of Bays (the only place for which I have data.)
Lake of Bays itself takes 27%
District takes 49%
And education, of which virtually nothing is known or discussed takes 22%
(There is 2% unaccounted for here, which is likely rounding errors and makes no great difference)
So if your worried about your taxes, assuming Huntsville’s numbers are similar to Lake of Bays, at least a little bit, take a look at the District and Education part before you get too excited about the Town itself as these two entities are likely taking about 70% of your taxes and thus are the place to look for 70% of your potential savings and probably won’t be discussed at the town budget meeting other than to say they exist.
I grant this is more difficult than looking at Town budgets as District is a big, soft edged and poorly defined entity hiding in Bracebridge and the Board of Education is so large as to be an unfathomable item to the average homeowner and even more poorly explained. They seem to work in a different universe. The only thing I know for sure is that even with their large area and budget, the local school in Dwight (for example) is constantly looking to groups like the Lions club to buy computers, books, help with outdoor structures and food for the students. It seems strange that with a budget in the 10’s of millions the school board can’t afford these necessities. I could go into School Board in a bit more detail, but not here and now.
I think this Council has got this administration running scared. Rather than putting together a responsible draft it appears that they’ve come up with a wishlist draft. There seems to be a lack of understanding and communication between them. Time to get some bright reporting me thinks.
Council is not the “root cause” of this preliminary budget – the senior staff are. Look no further.
Council should send it back now, and say fix it at 3%. If the senior leadership needs more, then present the appropriate justification for each additional request in a strategic manner.
Bringing a budget like this to the Board of Directors would result in …. fill in the blank.
Why is MPAC four years behind on updating assessments? Why is the provincial government making it so difficult for small towns and municipalities to raise the funds they need during a period of growth and inflation? Maybe it’s convenient for local government to take the “blame”? My property has certainly increased in value since my last assessment. The provincial government is the one we should be looking to, not the town council who are doing what they can with limited support from the province.
Just wait to see your tax bills after MPAC updates the assessed value of properties. We are currently sitting at 2016 values.
They’ll need to finish that outdoor toilet debacle so as to flush away more of our tax dollars.
People in this town work hard for their living, and many are struggling to make ends meet already. The town shouldn’t add to the taxpayer burden in order to prop up their incompetence and frivolous spending. They need to take some ownership and cut back just like everyone else is being forced to do in this economy.
Cut out useless programs (there are many) that are a waste of money and focus spending on necessary and practical services. Time to start living in reality.
As I’ve been saying, this council is out of control!
They endlessly come up with poorly planned projects, give aways, and millions to promote business for tourist enjoyment.
Listen up council, we can’t afford to live anymore!!
Stop wasteing money and this wouldnt needed.
15% is just a ruse to make 12% seem palatable after they do a lot of “cutting” to make it seem like they are trying to minimize the financial impact to residents.
Don’t be fooled.
Huntsville doesn’t follow budgets anyway.
“in a relatively short period of time, over one million dollars of taxpayer’s money has been spent or approved to be spent on unbudgeted items.”
https://doppleronline.ca/huntsville/huntsville-council/
Inflation is way down.
The increase should be related to inflation projected for 2024.
Far less than 15%.
An increase like that will just push more people out of housing in this town. I agree with you, Bob.
To be thinking about a Budget like that, April 1st, is April Fools Day. Get back to reality.