Some advice from Police Chief Jim Chu to would-be bank robbers: Don’t wear bright red shoes when robbing a bank in the Downtown Eastside.
Ha, ha.
Little jokey investigative insight there by the chief as he showed city council Tuesday a photograph of a bank robber who, in fact, wore red shoes to rob a bank. Police nabbed him a few hours after the heist.
There was a time, he said, when Vancouver was considered the bank robbery capital of Canada. Yep, in 2007, police recorded 185 heists and that dropped to 27 in 2014.
Why the drop?
Good police work, I suppose.
But good police work costs money — lots of it.
And as council heard this week from Chu and other city department heads including chief librarian Sandra Singh and Malcolm Bromley, general manager of parks and recreation, the cost to run the police department and other city departments isn’t getting any cheaper — even though there’s been a six per cent decrease in property crime since 2010 and a 21 per cent reduction in violent crime.
That means a tax hike.
Which, I take it, never goes over well: A city survey related to the budget found respondents number one concern was the cost of living. Second was housing, followed by social issues.
So far, city staff recommends council approve a 2.4 per cent tax increase to help pay for a $1.2 billion operating budget. Let me write that again: $1.2 billion! Almost a third of that budget is used to pay for police (22 per cent) and firefighters (nine per cent).
And I quote from a city budget document that went before council:
“Wages and benefits are the primary drivers of costs, particularly for public safety, which has seen arbitrated increases above inflation and above the wage increases of other employee bargaining units,” the report said. “For 2015, the impact of public safety wage and benefit increases above other employee bargaining units alone is the equivalent of an estimated one per cent tax increase.”
So what does all this mean for the taxpayer?
The city has provided a handy example the affect a tax hike will have on a $1 million property, which is a crazy price to pay for a home but, hey, it’s Vancouver, right? And we all live in $1 million homes, right?
Anyway, with a 2.4 per cent tax hike, the estimated tax bill would be $1,748 on a $1 million property, which is about a $41 hike over 2014. Then, of course, there are all those utility fees. When you add up fees for solid waste, sewer and water, you get $1,146, which is about $47 more than 2014.
Add the $1,146 to the $1,748 and total taxes and fees gives you a grand total of $2,894, which is an $88 overall increase. On the business side, the estimated increase when combining the tax bill with utility fees is $209 over last year.
So what exactly will taxpayers get for $1.2 billion?
Go read the 389-page report on the city's website to find out.
Yes, it's a whopper of a report, kind of dense and filled with numbers, numbers and more numbers and language like this: "The allocation of fiscal resources is aligned with council and city priorities and designed to drive results as measured through service performance metrics."
Ay, caramba!
Prediction: Considering only 44 per cent of eligible voters cared to cast a ballot in the 2014 election, I'm guessing less than half of the city's taxpayers will bother to read the document and simply accept the tax hike without a battle.
And if that's the case, don't call me later and tell me I should write a story about how your taxes are going up, how you're poor and blah, blah, blah...
Tell that to council.
Oh, and if you're going to rob a bank, don't wear red shoes.
twitter.com/Howellings
