Nanaimo City Taxes - Affordable? Sustainable?

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City Hall Has The Whole Process Upside Down
And City Council Seems to Agree With Them

I have sat in on six or seven of the new budget process sessions where council is being educated by staff about the intricacies of running each department in the city. It is all very interesting, and very helpful if you were wanting to know how to manage each department in the city, but pretty pointless when it comes to determining affordable levels of taxation in the city.

The Current Process is Upside Down...

Right now, city staff (whose job security depends on providing services) determine how many more of these services they think the average Nanaimo taxpayer wants them to provide. The strategic plan's misuse is another way of justifying their 'wish list'. They make up a list along with corresponding costs and determine from that what the tax increase has to be in order to provide these increased levels of service.

Once that has been determined a budget is struck, complete with what is considered an 'acceptable' level of tax increase, which council then dutifully gives their stamp of approval. The result is another 20 - 25% property tax increase over the next five years, a 25% increase in water fees in the same time. This is on top of increased taxes for the RDN, NRGH and SD68, all of which are added to the increase determined by the city.

In years past, in order to fund pet projects, such as new staff offices and staff wage increases, taxes were deliberately not increased sufficiently to properly fund water, sewer and roads. A fact seemingly lost of our city council brain trust. Rolling industrial taxes back by 50% also resulted in increasing the burden to the residential taxpayer. It was also another excuse for improper funding of water, sewer and roads.

There seems to be no real priority set when it comes to determining how tax dollars will be spent in accordance with the importance within the community. By that I mean, if water, sewer and roads don't trump shiny new staff offices and nice pay raises, something is really wrong with the system.

Affordable?? Sustainable?? Who Says??

One of the mantras you will hear coming from city staff is that the budget increases are affordable and sustainable. How that conclusion is reached has always been a mystery. Some councilors will justify that opinion by claiming there is no tax fatigue in Nanaimo, an opinion held by Councilor Brennan. Yet, their own Ispos Reid survey indicates that nearly 50% of those taking the survey do think their taxes are as high as they can afford now.

With a regular household budget, everyday taxpayers know how much money they have coming in each week/month/year and then prioritize how to spend that money, when the money runs out we are forced to stop spending. The city of Nanaimo on the other hand figures out how much money they want to spend and then adjust their income to compensate. They simply determine the amount of taxes needed to satisfy their wish list and dig a little deeper into YOUR pocket.

How do they determine affordable or sustainable? They don't. I can say with reasonable certainty that Mayor Ruttan in his sixth year is not going to anything other than get out the rubber stamp once again and listen to staff without ever asking the taxpayer what is affordable and what should be paid for first.