I’m already thinking about what kind of extra jobs I can pick up in order to afford my tax bill this year.
As of this April, we’ll have owned our house in West Sechelt for a total of four years and in that time our assessment has gone up 28 per cent. That would be awesome if we were selling, but we’re not, so we’ll get to pay our taxes based on that higher assessment. Super.
As if that wasn’t enough to scare me into searching for night-time cleaning jobs, it looks like taxes in Sechelt are going up nearly six per cent this year and even higher next year. We can also expect tax hikes every year after that until at least 2021, which is when our current financial plan runs out. Good times.
But wait, that’s not all. According to the draft budget, fees are also going up – a lot – in Sechelt this year. We’ll get to pay an extra $173 for our sewer use and $10 more for a solid waste levy. Ouch.
Sechelt’s new financial officer says the increases are needed just to top up budgets that have been “insufficient” in prior years, pay for increases in costs for staffing, water treatment centre operations, natural gas, water and hydro.
So with the increase in taxes and fees this year, we won’t get any new services. We’re just going to pay through the nose to hold the line. Fantastic.
We were told it was coming, that previous tax increases had been insufficient to simply keep up with the increased cost of providing services, never mind address the long-term sustainability of the municipality.
So I, like many others, have been watching council closely and wondering what kind of tax hit we’d have to brace for, thinking maybe one or two years of increased taxes would be warranted. But if the recently released draft budget is accepted as is, the hits will keep on coming long after 2017.
I understand the need for increased taxes to balance budgets and I want my municipality to be safe, welcoming and well functioning, but I don’t know if the average homeowner in Sechelt can swallow five years of tax increases and increased fees.
The majority of Sechelt’s population is over 65 and most of those seniors are on fixed incomes that won’t rise in the coming years. Adding hundreds of dollars each year to a tax bill that’s already well over $2,000 for homeowners with no wiggle room in their budgets will seriously hurt the people the municipality is meant to serve.
It’s a scary proposition and I hope council will take a serious look at the plan and consider the financial burden on the average taxpayer, then find a way to make some changes.
