The draft budget and business plan calls for a municipal tax increase of 5.49%.  Proposed budget represents an increase of $2.127 million; 1/3  ($.673 million) is to pay for program changes.  Having reviewed the justifications for the latter I have come round to seeing the value of the changes and in some cases I understand that they are very much needed.  I look forward to the Budget discussion at Council on Monday November 27.  There will first be a presentation by the Treasurer,  If you have some questions/comments please provide them to Council and/or contact me directly or make a comment here.  Below are some comments. To enable you to see more detail about a specific point I have indicated specific page number in the 460 page budget and business plan book. 

There are 2 program changes which I believe are a “no brainer”  in terms of approving.  They are both for library and total $41,000; they enable increased library hours and efficiencies in staffing.

The justification for 4 of the new roles, which are program changes, is strong and easy to understand: a Deputy Clerk (125/460), a second zoning examiner  (143/460) and Deputy Chief Building Officer (CBO)   (145/460) are strong. . One could argue that it is high risk to not fill these roles and that they are overdue.  The Deputy CBO is not funded by property tax; the other two roles represent an expense of $230,000.  The 4th role in my group of “no brainer” new roles is the Finance Clerk (184/460) which will enable having one person focused on Accounts Receivable which currently does not operate effectively as no resources are dedicated to the billing and collections.  Most of the cost for this new role is covered in water fee; hence impact on property tax is only $27,000.

I don’t consider the other new roles as critical as above but after having reviewed the program sheets with Staff I can see that they should be filled as they will increase efficiencies overall.

A Growth Management Services co-ordinator (141/460) is almost as critical as the above 3 roles given the amount of activity across the departments; the synergies across all are significant but need to be co-ordinated.

As described in the program change the Parks Operator (105/460)  is required in response to the amount of tree work; not only is Forestry responsible for work on the municipally owned trees Forestry provides the expertise for work related to trees at development sites.  Given our renewed interest in growing our canopy we need to have the expertise in house.

The Communications Designer role (123/460) initially struck me as a low priority. But in today’s world where effective, timely communication is so important and that such needs to be consistent across all channels, platforms I can appreciate the value of this expertise in house. Furthermore the digital connectivity of citizens to the services of King should be more effective.  One goal is to increase use of the
Township’s website to reduce information-only calls to ServiceKING, as well as to encourage community input on the online engagement tool, SpeaKING.

The need and value of an IT project manager is well articulated on the program sheet (210/460).  As the Township grows and technology advances IT needs to be fully equipped.

The 22024 capital budget is $16.666 million.  Nearly half (41%) of our capital is funded by property taxes.  To not put further pressure on the property tax increase  it is proposed that there not be an increase in the contribution from taxes vs 2023 but to keep it at  $6.3 million even though it has been acknowledged previously that there is a need to be increasing the annual contribution given the amount of work required on our roads and facilities. On page 61/460 the projects for 2024 are identified.  Of significance for Ward 5 there is the the Kettleby Road reconstruction; as indicated the $2.1 million  is spread over 3 years with the major portion being in 2024 when the work will be done.  There are also numerous engineering design studies for road rehabilitation identified in the last Roads Assessment study; pending outcome of those studies execution will be considered for execution in later years.

.Second largest source  (21%) of funds for capital  is development charges (DC’s).   Due to  unexpected changes to the DC legislation, high inflation and high interest rates, the Township has experienced a significant slow down in building starting in 2023 and accordingly the amount of DC’s to be collected in 2024 are less than what was forecasted in the last DC Study.  Impact is that some projects funded by DC’s are being delayed where possible. But this is not feasible in all cases.  The funding strategy for the Township Wide Recreation Centre includes DC’s; hence as reviewed in the budget there will some debt financing in 2025 to make up for the shortfall.  (64/640). As our debt level is below our own limit of 10% and well below the Provincial limit of 25% this does not concern me.  Due to lower DC’s there will be no gravel road conversions to pavement in 2024; this is disappointing as that had been anticipated for the 17th Jane west to 400.

On page 40/460 there is a list of projects which are not funded but for which cost estimates are provided.  Some of these are ones I wish we could do such as fixing or at least reducing the acoustic problem in the King City Library but I cannot recommend funding it. . I would like to fund weekend park staff hours (107/460); specifically this would lead to staff being available seven days a week through the summer to deal with issues such as garbage cleaning of public washrooms, user group request and general parks maintenance.   As it is only $26,000 I would like to ask staff to see if there is not some way to finance this with reductions elsewhere.  There are a couple which I do not support or at least could not support until there was far more information and analysis such as use of salt on our urban roadways.

At 310/460 recommended  fees and charges for 2024 are identified.  As we are on track to have the Township Wide Recreational Centre open by fall 2024 I want to point out that fees for aquatics are now included starting at 313/460.   One of the assumptions in creating the budget is that there will be incremental changes in user fees and charges for 2024 based on an annual increase within a range of 1% – 2.5%, unless unique circumstances warranted alternate consideration.

Finally:  this post and the budget book is looking only at the Township portion of the final tax rate which is a blended one of Twshp, York Region and Education.  As  Twshp is only about 1/3 of the blended rate it is very possible that the blended rate will be less as I don’t expect the YR one to be >5%.

As always you can participate in the Council and make a deputation on this motion  in person or virtually.  For details on how to do please see Council agenda.  Or you can send an email to clerks@king.ca by Monday noon with your comments, questions.  And I welcome hearing from you directly or by making a comment on the blog.