BRASS TAX
So taxes are going up again in the city.
No surprise there.
City council decided Monday night to increase residential and non-residential property taxes by 2.84 per cent, which your elected officials will tell you is expected to rank among the lowest in Metro Vancouver. That increase, of course, doesn't include the so-called tax shift.
I'll get to what the tax shift means for your wallet in a few paragraphs, but first the background. This is the annual shift council has adopted since March 2008 which sees a percentage of tax non-residential property owners would normally pay under the old system shifted to residential property owners.
Council adopted the shift based on recommendations from the Property Tax Policy Review Commission, which said a target distribution of 52 per cent residential and 48 per cent non-residential should be achieved.
At the time, it was a fact that non-residential owners were paying a disproportionate amount of tax compared not only to residential owners but business owners across the country.
To avoid the significant impact of one huge increase in taxes for residential property owners, council agreed to a gradual increase over the years. Between 2008 and 2011, a total of $22.2 million was redistributed, with a balance of $1.6 million remaining for the 2012 tax year.
So the good news for residential property owners is this is the fifth and final year of the shift.
The way the math works this year is that 0.51 per cent from the non-residential tax base, which will likely be approved by council in April, will be shifted to the 2.84 per cent increase for a total of 3.35 per cent.
The overall tax increase for non-residential property owners, when 0.57 per cent is deducted as per the shift, is expected to be 2.27 per cent-all this to balance a $1.1 billion operating budget. I know, lots of numbers. But here's some more.
As I wrote during last fall's election campaign, this political business of keeping taxes low needs to be put into context. So, here again, are the facts, as was provided to me by the city's communications department in November.
From 2006 to 2008, under the NPA, taxes increased 17.76 per cent. From 2009 to 2011, under Vision, taxes increased 15.79 per cent.
All we know from Vision, as outlined in its 2011 campaign platform booklet, is that there will be no shift in 2013 or 2014 "until further assessment is completed." I can only gue$$ what that mean$.
COUNTING COPS
In other budget news-
A city news release announced that an additional $8.5 million was being added to the Vancouver Police Department's $200 millionplus budget so 35 new police officers could be hired.
Again, some history is needed here. The new cops are the 35 promised to the VPD from the NPA administration that ran city hall from 2005 to 2008. But along came a recession and the election of Gregor Robertson and his ruling Vision council and... the cops were never hired.
That's because in 2009 city manager Penny Ballem told the VPD and other city departments to cut their budgets.
The VPD chose not to hire the 35 cops, who were to comprise the department's so-called "metro teams." Their purpose was to reduce response times to incidents across the city by placing the officers on the road during peak periods.
Now, it seems, that will happen.
[email protected] Twitter: @Howellings
