Members of Clearview Council met for a sixth working session on the 2012 budget Monday afternoon, intending to discuss ways of whittling the proposed 4.9 per cent combined tax increase down a few notches before the budget is presented in draft form at a public town hall meeting on Thursday, March 29.
But before they could get to that discussion, Township Treasurer Edward Henley presented them with updated numbers showing that the proposed combined tax increase, previous to any cuts made by Council, is actually 6.3 per cent – encompassing a 10.49 per cent increase for Clearview, a 3.55 per cent increase for Simcoe County and a zero per cent increase for the School Boards.
The higher number is a result of two pieces of new information received by the treasury department in the weeks since the preliminary budget numbers were compiled. One, from Simcoe County, showed that the levy the Township pays to have the upper-tier municipality take care of waste-collection duties will be about $150,000 higher than the $800,000 that had been budgeted. This is a result of several things, including an increase in tipping fees and the roll-out of an expanded blue box program.In general, the waste collection levy has been rising at an average rate of 10.6 per cent since 2006, when it sat at $681,000.
The other new information presented by Henley was a prediction that, with competetive bargaining between the OPP, Toronto Police and York Region Police over the next two years, it’s anticipated that the OPP will receive an 8.6 per cent salary hike in 2014. That would work out to an extra $176,000 owed for Clearview’s portion of the Huronia West officers’ salaries, which represents a 1.8 per cent tax increase. To be prudent, Henley offered that Council should break that into a 0.9 per cent increase over the next two years.
With this new information and the time it took to receive it, Council decided to postpone its discussion on budget cuts to another working session, now scheduled for Monday, March 12 at 4 pm. Following that, the public will have a chance to comment on the proposed budget at the March 29 town hall meeting. There will then be one more working session, on April 16, during which Council will take public comments into consideration before finally passing the budget at the Council meeting on April 30.