By Sean Meyer/London Community News
Through heated philosophical debates by councillors, and occasional shouts of protest from citizens in the public viewing gallery, London taxpayers were given their second consecutive zero per cent tax freeze.
Councillors achieved the zero per cent after voting 9-6 to take $1.29 million from the city’s reserve funds. That dip into reserves was necessary to make up the difference in what would have been a 0.3 per cent tax increase (amounting to approximately $7 for the average homeowner) after council gave final approval to all the items in its so-called B List of cuts.
Mayor Joe Fontana, who championed the tax freeze from before he was event elected, said people shouldn’t be “crying the sky is falling” or suggesting there is a “million dollar time bomb” waiting to go off. Rather, Fontana said, the achievement of zero per cent is something to celebrate.”
“We have all achieved a great goal. Zero taxes saves each and every man, woman and child something,” Fontana said. “We have just proven, again, for the second year in a row, that we can manage our financial affairs, we can grow our city.”
Council voted 9-6 to approve the budget with the same detractors of utilizing the reserves also voting against the final 2012 tax levy. That levy amounted to $467,352,409 after recognizing a $4.6 million reduction through assessment growth
Ward 6 Councillor Nancy Branscombe, one of the loudest voices against achieving the zero through the use of reserves, said this was contrary to every sound fiscal policy the city has and will come back to haunt council. Branscombe also said it was “disingenuous” for some councillors to suggest draws from reserve funds can be simply put back into the budget next year.
“It is a fundamental principal; nobody that runs a business would do this prudently, taking one-time funding to reduce taxes. There is going to be a huge increase in taxes over the next couple of years because there is no money now for zero,” Branscombe said. “Where is it going to come from in the next two years? The taxpayers of London are going to pay a heavy price for this over the next few years.”
Council began its meeting on Monday (Feb. 21) with regular business, putting off budget discussions until after the dinner break and an in-camera session that lasted for over an hour. The budget deliberations, which ended over seven hours later on Tuesday morning, began in front of full house in the public viewing gallery and included members of the Occupy London movement.
A small group, including several members of the movement, were cautioned on several occasions about shouting from public gallery. One such occasion came during a protest by Rev. Paul Browning, from Trinity United Church and Community Centre. Browning was escorted from the council chamber after silently walking through it with a sign calling on council to reject a proposed cut to the affordable housing reserve fund.
The first of several heated debates during the meeting came over a $500,000 reduction to a reserve fund for the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) to make for accessibility upgrades to city infrastructure.
Ward 12 Councillor Harold Usher was among those strongly speaking against the reduction.
“I think it is very important we understand we are talking about people with disabilities and we are talking about accommodating them,” Usher said. “This reserve is not a savings, it is planned money, planned for a point in time when we are going to need it. I don’t think we can afford to take $500,000 out of it and spend it somewhere else.”
The AODA reduction would narrowly pass by an 8-7 vote, but only after Ward 14 Councillor Sandy White moved an amendment to that cut that would make it a one-time reduction.
To do so, city treasurer Martin Hayward reminded councillors, they would have to find the money elsewhere in 2013. The mayor also pointed out that all council decisions can be brought back to the table the following year.
Councillors voted down a $23,000 reduction through the closure of splash pads and reduction of pool hours, and a $75,000 reduction through elimination of winter trash pick up in selected city parks. Those monies were put back into the budget before $180,000 was removed through a motion to reduce the waste management services budget.
The most contentious debate of the evening came down to council’s decision to reduce the city’s $2 million contribution to the affordable housing reserve fund by $1 million.
While Fontana said the reduction was part of a new direction for affordable housing in the city, “doing more with less,” several members of council said it was the process of changing the city’s strategy without more extensive discussion that they couldn’t support.
Baechler said she was concerned members of council were debating issues of public housing instead of remaining focused on the affordable housing question.
“Affordable housing is money for building new units,” Baechler said. “It doesn’t refer to pieces of public housing, social housing, downloaded to us from the province. That is what I was shocked about . . . it told me how little homework members of council had done.”
Another significant cut approved by council, by another 8-7 margin, could hardly be discussed. That item, a $1.5 million cut, has only been debated in-camera and so details couldn’t be provided in open council.
For Branscombe, her concern stemmed from what she called “policy making on the fly,” which involves changing directions on much-debated issues at the last minute. Although the item was discussed in-camera, Branscombe once again alluded to future job cuts to city employees.
“I talked to all the unions at the start of this because there may be implications to the workforce. That probably will be inevitable,” Branscombe said. “I did that in good faith . . . so if we ever got to the point where we might have been talking about reducing the size of the workforce, the unions would be at the table. Of all the cuts tonight, this is the one that upsets me the most.”
Voting results from significant issues
- Voting against a $500,000 reduction to AODA reserve fund: Bill Armstrong, Sandy White, Joni Baechler, Nancy Branscombe, Paul Hubert, Harold Usher and Judy Bryant.
- Voting against cutting $1 million from its affordable housing contribution: Bill Armstrong, Joni Baechler, Nancy Branscombe, Matt Brown, Paul Hubert, Harold Usher and Judy Bryant.
- Voting against a $1.5 million reduction to an in-camera matter: Bill Armstrong, Joni Baechler, Nancy Branscombe, Matt Brown, Paul Hubert, Harold Usher and Judy Bryant.
- Voting against the use of reserve funds to reach zero per cent: Joni Baechler, Nancy Branscombe, Matt Brown, Paul Hubert, Harold Usher and Judy Bryant.
- Voting against adoption of the 2012 budget: Joni Baechler, Nancy Branscombe, Matt Brown, Paul Hubert, Harold Usher and Judy Bryant.
