After lengthy discussion, and a few final cuts, Chatham-Kent councilors passed a 2024 budget with a 5.53 per cent tax hike Thursday night.
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The works out to a roughly $185 tax hike on an average home assessed at $176,200 (2016 value).
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The third night of deliberations featured a debate about using reserves to reduce the tax impact in the coming year.
South Kent Coun. Ryan Doyle’s bid to prevent a tax hike by removing nearly $10.5 million from transfers to reserves was defeated on a 12-3 vote.
Mayor Darrin Canniff won support for several motions, including: applying $25,000 in casino revenue to the base budget; allocating $50,000 related to the base budget vacancy management provision; and reducing the adjustment factor on asset management inflation from one per cent to 0.5 per cent for 2024, resulting in a 4.2 inflationary increase.
Council voted 10-5 to adopt the budget.
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This was the first year of Chatham-Kent’s new four-year budget process. Councilors were only approving the 2024 budget Thursday; the multi-year strategy aims to provide long-term guidance.
“We knew from the outset that this budget would be largely about inflation and about our commitment to asset management planning,” Chatham Coun. Brock McGregor, council’s budget chairperson, said after the meeting.
“It ended up at a space that I thought most of us expected. We’ll be I think below what you see in most areas in Ontario this year.”
Voting in favor of the budget were Canniff and councilors Conor Allin, Lauren Anderson, Brock McGregor, Anthony Ceccacci, Amy Finn, Aaron Hall, Melissa Harrigan, Jamie McGrail and Trevor Thompson.
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Councilors Michael Bondy, Doyle, Rhonda Jubenville, Alysson Storey and John Wright were opposed.
Although his motion on reservations was criticized by those around the table, as well as staff, for the long-term impact, Doyle said his concern was for struggling residents.
“I’m just thinking about the people who are hurting at home,” he said.
Anderson, a West Kent councilor who moved passage of the budget later in the night, believed councilors had cut as much as they possibly could.
“I’m pretty uncomfortable with us trimming anything more from our budget,” she said.
The budget increase includes investments in the Chatham-Kent Police Service and municipal infrastructure. Police accounted for 1.14 percentage points of the 5.53 per cent tax hike, and infrastructure 3.11 per cent.
The remaining increase provides investments in affordable housing, enhanced library service and investments in municipal services.
McGregor said given the multi-year budget, council will have an improved understanding of the challenges ahead when making decisions.
“What we will have is a better expectation of where we’re standing,” he said. “Often in the past, it was a bit of a surprise when you got to a subsequent year and saw some impacts of past-year decisions that really started you in a hole.”
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