If you've had a chance to review the 2013 Draft Budget, you will have noticed that a new format has been introduced which makes it extremely difficult to compare it with the 2012 Budget. The rationale may be for efficiency purposes however when you start to look more closely, you can see that there are many devils in the reformatted details.
It will take a little longer to work through this latest bundle of smoke and mirrors, but here are some troubling observations:
As we mentioned, the Kearney Library will lose all funding in 2013 (Budget page 10). The Library is told they can use “accumulated surplus” (Proudfootese for Reserve Funds) for 2013. So what happens in 2014?
Meanwhile Council is giving itself a pay raise of 21.8% raising their honorariums from $41,067 to $50,000. This will be this Council's third pay raise since taking office!
Municipal property taxes will increase by .4%. This is better than the 9.5% reductions in the last two budgets but it doesn’t even cover inflation. The Proudfoot bunch is keeping their commitment of reducing taxes at any cost. Low taxes always sounds good in a media sound-bite but the impact is to kill the library, kill Lions Park facilities, kill community festivals, kill jobs, kill the spirit of Kearney. Some day there will have to be a massive tax increase when the next council tries to bring Kearney back from the dead.
But the property tax story gets even worse. Total Taxation Revenue (Page 1) only increases by $13,527 while Education Levies increase by $23,849. In other words, the Town’s portion of property tax revenue goes down in 2013 by $10,322.00. This means the Town is not collecting enough to cover education taxes, which are set by the Province. The Town is obligated to collect a certain amount of education taxes as determined by the Province. Pretending that the line on tax increases is being held at little or no change, while this Council is subsidizing the shortfall out of municipal funds (at the expense of local programs and services) is disgusting. $10,322.00 of your tax dollars, that were supposed to fund things like the library are being slipped to the Province under the table.
We will leave things at this point for now. There is a great deal to fathom regarding the mismanagement of our tax-dollars, and it is becoming abundantly clear that the 2013 Draft Budget is fraught with deception and misuse of funds. Again, so the Proudfoot Bunch can cater to their masters.
It will take a little longer to work through this latest bundle of smoke and mirrors, but here are some troubling observations:
As we mentioned, the Kearney Library will lose all funding in 2013 (Budget page 10). The Library is told they can use “accumulated surplus” (Proudfootese for Reserve Funds) for 2013. So what happens in 2014?
Meanwhile Council is giving itself a pay raise of 21.8% raising their honorariums from $41,067 to $50,000. This will be this Council's third pay raise since taking office!
Municipal property taxes will increase by .4%. This is better than the 9.5% reductions in the last two budgets but it doesn’t even cover inflation. The Proudfoot bunch is keeping their commitment of reducing taxes at any cost. Low taxes always sounds good in a media sound-bite but the impact is to kill the library, kill Lions Park facilities, kill community festivals, kill jobs, kill the spirit of Kearney. Some day there will have to be a massive tax increase when the next council tries to bring Kearney back from the dead.
But the property tax story gets even worse. Total Taxation Revenue (Page 1) only increases by $13,527 while Education Levies increase by $23,849. In other words, the Town’s portion of property tax revenue goes down in 2013 by $10,322.00. This means the Town is not collecting enough to cover education taxes, which are set by the Province. The Town is obligated to collect a certain amount of education taxes as determined by the Province. Pretending that the line on tax increases is being held at little or no change, while this Council is subsidizing the shortfall out of municipal funds (at the expense of local programs and services) is disgusting. $10,322.00 of your tax dollars, that were supposed to fund things like the library are being slipped to the Province under the table.
We will leave things at this point for now. There is a great deal to fathom regarding the mismanagement of our tax-dollars, and it is becoming abundantly clear that the 2013 Draft Budget is fraught with deception and misuse of funds. Again, so the Proudfoot Bunch can cater to their masters.
Are you surprised?
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