Belleville council set its operating budget for this year Thursday afternoon.
After a multitude of cuts, deferred spending and the use of $650,000 from the tax rate stabilization fund the tax increase will be between 3% and 3.5% depending on which part of the city residents live. Staff had originally brought in a draft budget featuring a seven per cent tax increase.
At just over three per cent a homeowner with a property assessed at $250,000 will pay around $135 a year more in taxes, down from the originally proposed $300.
Staff were asked at the end of the day Wednesday to go over their budgets again to try and find ways to save money. Thursday council approved the vast majority of their suggestions but among them were ones that council rejected. Those included a proposed $25,000 cut to road patching, the dropping of the Saturday leaf and yard waste service at the public works depot on Wallbridge Crescent, and a garbage bag tag increase from $3 a bag to $3.50.
Inflation last year nationally was 6.1% so Mayor Neil Ellis congratulated both council and staff for hard work bringing in a tax increase that was the lowest of any neighbouring municipality so far.
Ellis says despite the cuts improvement to services were still included in the budget.
“We’ve added to this budget so we added to police, fire, a doctor recruitment position, help for our nurse practitioners’ location, and we’re putting money into the wastewater treatment plant, $13 million.”
Last fall Mayor Neil Ellis campaigned for office pledging a zero per cent increase.
“I apologize that we didn’t get to zero. Obviously that’s what I’d like to have done but as we all know with inflation and some other issues
that were handed to this council we got through it and I think we got a respectable amount especially to comparable municipalities like
Brockville, Quinte West, or the County.”
As mentioned, council decided to take $650,000 from its tax rate stabilization fund to help get taxes down. And with the exception of Councillor Garnet Thompson, all members supported the idea put forward by Councillor Paul Carr.
Carr said future growth projections for Belleville suggest that it won’t be long before council can start building up the fund again but now it needs to be used.
” … and in a high inflationary environment that’s the exact time it needs to be done. It has the greatest impact in terms of reducing the tax bill as folks open those bills.”
There is now a little over $5 million left in the tax rate stabilization fund.
Meanwhile on Wednesday The Belleville Police Service presented an operating budget increase of 10 per cent that featured plans to hire four new frontline officers and five more dispatchers. The budget totals over $23.5 million.
Councillor Lisa Anne Chatten said council unanimously supported the budget as calls for service to police continue to increase dramatically.
“It’s obvious that we are in a position that we need a lot more support for police services, to do the job that we expect them to do which is keeping our community safe and focusing on criminal matters and they can’t do that with the staff level where it’s at.”
And the 2023 operating budget features a goodie for Belleville high school students. Belleville Transit will offer them bus passes free of charge.
General Manager of Transportation and Operations Joe Reid says the last time they sold bus passes at a reduced rate to high school students was 2019 and just around 200 were purchased so giving free passes won’t cost Belleville Transit much, only around $9,000.
Reid says the free bus rides could eventually grow the system’s ridership.
“We’re hopeful that this incentive will get people to utilize their transit service, create a generation of users that are reliant and want to use
and embrace public transit.”
Also approved in the operating budget was money to expand mobility bus service for elderly and physically challenged people throughout both urban and rural Belleville.
