Ways to Lower Nanaimo Taxes THIS YEAR

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City Council Seems Dominated By A Tax & Spend Mentality

Given that this city council has had the current five year financial plan in their hands since last December and to date have not reduced the budget by one thin dime, I made a presentation at the May 6th city council meeting with some options I hope they consider. I presume, they understood what I said but realize that may be asking too much.

The Taxpayer Satisfaction Survey that Councillor Brennan and others like to refer to as validating council's performance, clearly demonstrated taxpayer fatigue in Nanaimo, 50% of the respondents said they would prefer reduced services to tax increases. Sorry council.

I offered the following options that would greatly reduce the need for tax increases over the next five years.

SURPLUS TAXES: the draft budget presented last December called for a tax increase of 2.6%, the financial report for 2012 indicated there was a surplus of over $2,500,000.00 which is the equivalent of a 2.7% tax increase. Clearly a 2.7% surplus is more than enough to pay for a 2.6% increase, meaning there is no reason for an increase this year at all.

SHORT TERM FUNDING: By funding $23,000,000.00 worth of capital projects with short term financing (meaning it has to be paid in 5 years) instead of spreading it out over 10 years or longer puts considerable upward pressure on the needed tax increase for th next 5 years. Long term financing could reduce the 18% tax increase to at least 9% or less.

VICC Put this under performing piece of prime downtown real estate with this $72 million state of the art building up for sale. I am sure we will find we have invested our money wisely and will have no trouble recovering our $72 million. When we do, we retire the outstanding debt on the building and put $45 - $55 million cash back in the bank. Then there should be no reason for tax increases for the next 10 - 15 years.

PORT THEATRE: Gets a $500,000 subsidy which could be eliminated over the next five years by simply increasing the ticket price by $5.00 over the next five years. They claim 100,000 customers, so this would eliminate the need for the $500,000 taxpayer subsidy.

DNBIA: This small group of downtown businesses should be able to stand on their own by now considering all the money spent on downtown revitalization. They should be able to attract and retain enough customers to be self sufficient and no longer need the $300,000 they get from Nanaimo residents and other businesses.

COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Costs $140,000 per year, just eliminate the position. Been in place for a year now, simply not needed.

ELIMINATE OUTSOURCED PLANS AND STUDIES: Every time you turn around we are spending another $50,000 - $120,000+ on some plan, survey, study or consultants report. These reports etc. provide very questionable value for Nanaimo taxpayers.

DCC's: Need to be increased to more properly reflect the REAL cost of future growth in the community. Current taxpayers always subsidizing the cost of developing and building new homes for people to come and move into, is simply a Ponzi scheme of sorts.

HOTEL TAX EXEMPTION: Needs to be rescinded immediately. We are simply giving up potentially millions and millions of possible tax revenue for no good reason. Had the exemption been in place when the Ramada Inn was built, how many taxes would we have given up for no good reason.

NEDC; The Nanaimo Economic Development Corporation needs to fund at least 33% of their operating costs. This would save the taxpayers $500,000 per year. NEDC is after all, in the ECONOMIC development business.

WAGES & BENEFITS: The wages and benefits paid in the city are simply way out of control. From 2007 - 2012, wages and benefits paid in the city have increased by 16.5% - 19.5% and show no signs of slowing down. This year the city will collect $89,000,000.00 in direct taxation, while paying over $70,000,000.00 in wages and benefits. This means that nearly 80% of all taxes collected just pays wages and benefits. It doesn't buy any shiny new fire trucks, fill potholes, build sidewalks or put water and sewer pipe in the ground. Are these wages and benefits sustainable or affordable? 50% of the people surveyed said NO.

Past Decisions That Affect This Years Need For Tax Increases

• Spending $120,000 on a toilet in Diana Krall Plaza
• $300,000 tax exemptions to the pub in the train station
• Losing $140,000 by `saving money` taking parking enforcement in-house.
• Selling the $3,000,000 Annex for $1.00
• Hiring $60,000/yr meter maids
• Spending $180,000 to address a $20,000 problem in the theatre on Victoria Rd. when it is seismically unsound
• A $3,000,000 solution would have solved the Colliery Dam problem in 2010, by dragging their feet staff turned this into a $7,000,000+ problem
• Spending $16,000,000.00 on a new three storey warehouse (aka new annex) when $6,000,000.00 would have solved the problem in the old annex. Which they gave away for $1.00

It was like watching an episode of the Keystone Kops observing this council trying to handle some tax saving measures put forward by Bestwick, Kipp and McKay.

All of the above suggestions are valid and worthy of consideration, however, I have my doubts if most members of this council understand what was put before them. They seem to feel their only function is to come up with more and more creative ways of spending your tax dollar.

It would be funny, if it were simply not so tragic.