{"id":5958,"date":"2014-03-26T13:37:58","date_gmt":"2014-03-26T17:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=5958"},"modified":"2014-04-02T14:40:42","modified_gmt":"2014-04-02T18:40:42","slug":"2014-aurora-budget-approved-with-3-75-tax-hike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/2014-aurora-budget-approved-with-3-75-tax-hike\/","title":{"rendered":"2014 Aurora budget approved with 3.75% tax hike"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Aurora Council approved its 2014 budget last week, resulting in a 3.75 per cent hike to the municipal portion of your tax bill.<\/p>\n

Combined with further tax increases from the Region of York, as well as education tax, homeowners can expect a combined tax rate jump of 1.99 per cent overall.<\/p>\n

Broken down into dollars and cents, the average Aurora homeowner whose property is valued at $550,000 can expect to pay an extra $109.44 this year. For commercial properties also valued at $550,000, owners can expect an increase of $122.51. <\/p>\n

Aurora\u2019s 2014 Budget represents an overall budget of $63 million for the municipality. Items within the budget include $140,000 additional funding to Central York Fire Services, the fire department shared between Aurora and Newmarket, for the now complete multi-year phase in of 20 new crew members in Aurora, an increase in insurance premiums as well as cost of living increases for municipal employees at Town Hall, $208,000 in contributions to infrastructure reserves, and $110,000 additional funding for the Aurora Public Library. <\/p>\n

New initiatives include $3 million to convert Aurora\u2019s existing street lights to LED lights, a $220,000 investment in the creation of a Community Improvement Plan for Downtown Aurora, $150,000 for a new accessible playground at Queen\u2019s Diamond Jubilee Park (formerly Civic Square Park), and continued work on the Aurora Promenade. <\/p>\n

In a statement released Wednesday, Mayor Geoffrey Dawe said he was \u201cextremely pleased with the budget\u201d in addressing these and other items \u201cwhile keeping our combined tax levy increase below two per cent.<\/p>\n

Discussions, however, were decidedly more heated the previous evening as Councillors prepared to sign off on the document. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think, as a whole, Council has worked to reduce this budget as much as possible,\u201d said Councillor Paul Pirri. \u201cI think you can always try to do more and you can always try to make suggestions, but this is a good compromise and we kept it below two per cent, which is a goal of a lot of people.\u201d
\nThe next speaker was Councillor Wendy Gaertner, who caused tempers to flare when she said over $300,000 was included in the budget as \u201csupplementary taxes\u201d, taxes which would flow into Town coffers mid-year, when that was not the case. <\/p>\n

\u201cCouncil is aware that we will not actually be receiving this revenue,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Town Treasurer Dan Elliott, however, countered that this item for $325,000 is clearly labelled as a draw from Aurora\u2019s stabilization reserves to make up for a shortfall in supplementary taxes that is expected this year. $250,000 is expected to come into the Town, and the $325,000 would be drawn from reserves to bring $575,000 to the table to keep things in line with last year.<\/p>\n

Supplementary taxes, he added, are \u201cvolatile\u201d and difficult to predict and if Aurora budgeted for $325,000 less than they expected last year, the Town\u2019s tax rate would have to increase by nearly a full percentage point. Next year should be better as more properties in Aurora\u2019s 2C development come into being. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a line item for $250,000 and a separate line item for $325,000 from tax rate stabilization,\u201d he said.
\nCouncillor Gaertner, however, was undeterred.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever you want to look at it, this is smoke and mirrors for an election year and I will be voting against this,\u201d she said.
\nWith that, a number of Councillors said they were \u201coffended\u201d and \u201cconcerned\u201d with her comments. <\/p>\n

\u201cI do find it a little bit odd that a Councillor would speak of \u2018smoke and mirrors\u2019 when, since 2007, six budgets voted for the approval of the use of supplementary taxes at a $400,000 level, and here we are below that,\u201d said Councillor Michael Thompson. \u201cIt must be an election year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Councillor Sandra Humfryes, \u201cIf there is that kind of feeling throughout the process, it should be deliberated and put on the table at that moment, not on the day we are going to be approving the budget. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am not happy that there is an increase of that nature, but it could not be avoided.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Councillor John Abel, Council worked hard going through just about every item in the budget. He said the \u201csmoke and mirrors\u201d comment was \u201cirresponsible\u201d and did not reflect the reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cI consider it good management and a way to stabilize [tax rates] to the taxpayer,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are trying to do a very important role here. We have spent a great deal of time [on this] and to bring it up at Council when we are approving it is inappropriate, in my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also speaking out against the budget were Councillors John Gallo and Chris Ballard. For Councillor Gallo, his objections included increases to Aurora\u2019s tax premiums which came up near the end of December, nearly two months after budget deliberations kicked off, as well as cost of living increases at Town Hall. <\/p>\n

Additional concerns included the new accessible playground which, he said, \u201cshould never have seen the light of day.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Councillor Ballard, the 3.75 per cent tax increase for the municipal portion of the tax bill was out of whack with inflation. Many Aurorans are on fixed incomes, he argued, with some seeing their incomes decreasing, and more should have been done to peg Aurora\u2019s tax increase to this inflation. He also suggested he viewed revenue projections from new developments as overly optimistic in the budget. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am not confident in our revenue projections, not because we have made a mistake, but I think we are overconfident in the state of the building industry and how fast we will be moving ahead,\u201d said Councillor Ballard, noting he was against drawing from stabilization reserves to make up the shortfall. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have philosophical concerns about those funds using tax dollars from residents today being spent on residents of tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayor Dawe, however, disagreed with his view on drawing from reserves. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I want as a resident is consistency when I receive my taxes,\u201d he said. \u201cI think this is a very prudent way to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora Council approved its 2014 budget last week, resulting in a 3.75 per cent hike to the municipal portion of your tax bill.<\/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-5958","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\/p3D2k4-1y6","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 08:49:18","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\/5958","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=5958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}