{"id":25168,"date":"2019-11-08T11:44:37","date_gmt":"2019-11-08T16:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25168"},"modified":"2019-11-14T22:48:33","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T03:48:33","slug":"council-eyes-2-9-tax-increase-for-next-three-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/council-eyes-2-9-tax-increase-for-next-three-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Council eyes 2.9% tax increase for next three years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council is eyeing a 2.9 per cent increase to the municipal portion of your tax bill each year through 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The target figure has\nbeen released ahead of the start of talks surrounding the Town\u2019s 2020\nOperations Budget later this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Local lawmakers will\nconsider this budget target at the Committee level this week and, if approved,\nthis is the increase both department leads and Council members will shoot for\nonce budget talks begin on November 18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2.9 per cent target\nis the result of Council\u2019s direction this past spring tasking staff with\ndeveloping Aurora\u2019s first multi-year operating budget for the next three fiscal\nyears with an eye of reaching a tax rate increase equal to the rate of\ninflation for each of the year, plus a further 1 per cent earmarked to support\nthe Town\u2019s fiscal strategies and infrastructure, including top-ups to various\nreserve accounts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStaff\u2019s recommended\ndraft operating budgets for 2020, 2021 and 2022 result in a required tax levy\nincrease of 2.9 per cent for the next three years, which is 0.1 per cent lower\nper year than the direction received by Council,\u201d said Jason Gaertner, Manager\nof Financial Management, for the Town of Aurora in his report to Council. \u201cThe\nTown has adopted a multi-year budgeting framework where Council approves the\nfirst year\u2019s budget of its term and receives an accompanying forecast of the\nnext three budgets. In the second year of its term, Council will approve a\nthree-year operating budget, including all related tax impacts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUsing multi-year budgets\nand forecasts improves fiscal health and service delivery through better\ncoordination of budgeting and strategic priorities; greater certainty for\ndepartments in managing expenditures and service levels; improved fiscal\ndiscipline of the organization; streamlined budget reviews that focus on key\nchanges in assumptions and the reasons driving such changes; allowing staff to develop\nbudgets with fixed targets in place, allowing early response to circumstances\nand budget constraints of such targets; reduces uncertainty about future year\ntax levies; [and] provides longer-term outlook to outside organizations that\nrely upon the Town for a share of their funding, which enables them to plan and\ndeliver their programs more effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the issues and\ntax pressures addressed through this multiyear forecasting, he added, include\ncost of living adjustments for existing municipal staff, the Town\u2019s share of\ngrowth for the Central York Fire Services, a cost shared with the Town of\nNewmarket, and new staffing requirements at the Town level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This budget, however,\ndoes not include any further costs that might be related to the development of\nLibrary Square and the operations of the Aurora Cultural Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTogether, Council and staff are in the process of refining the final design and requirements related to the construction of a new community hub, currently referred to as Library Square,\u201d said Mr. Gaertner. \u201cThe planned Library Square work includes many dimensions [including] an addition to the Church Street School, a new outdoor square, [a] pedestrian bridge linking the new addition and the Library, a new parking configuration, and a new library vestibule, program rooms and Yonge Street entrance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe total required\ninvestment for this project is presently estimated to be $47.9 million. The\nTown\u2019s proposed investment strategy for this project includes the use of debt\nas a source of funding. The Town\u2019s debt tolerance for this project was defined\nas the debt principle cannot exceed a point where its annual carrying costs\nexceed an equivalent value to a 1 per cent tax rate increase being $484,700 in\n2020. The investment strategy for this project plans to use the maximum defined\ndebt threshold. The debt is expected to be required in late 2021 or early 2022.\nThis provides the Town time to phase in the annual carrying costs, principal\nand interest of this debt. It is recommended that this new debt\u2019s annual cost\nequivalent of a 1 per cent tax increase be phased in over 2020 and 2021 in two\nequal tax rate increases of 0.5 per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Aurora Cultural\nCentre (ACC) has identified further operating pressures over the next three\nyears totalling $107,400 due to base salary funding catch-up and rental income\nlosses due to the tenants of the Church Street School having to vacate the\nbuilding during the construction of Library Square.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Town has budgeted\ninflationary increases of $8,300, $8,500 and $8,700 for 2020 to 2022\nrespectively,\u201d said Mr. Gaertner. \u201cOnce these available amounts have been\napplied to the pressures, the net remaining ACC funding requirements become\n$58,700, $10,500, and $12,800 for the next three years. Staff recommend that\neach of these net remaining pressures be funded out of existing Library Square\noperating budget funding that is included in staff\u2019s recommended draft budget,\nthus avoiding the need for any further incremental tax rate increases. If\nCouncil does not support staff\u2019s recommendations in this regard, a further tax\nincrease in addition to the identified 2.9 per cent per year would be\nnecessary.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Target figures could rise by 0.5 due to Library Square debt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6xW","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 13:01:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25168\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}