A modified version of Huntsville’s 2024 budget has come in with a proposed tax increase of 10.89 per cent.
That’s down from the 15.23 per cent hike in the initial draft, after a more than three-hour discussion by the town’s General Committee on Tuesday, with further discussions set for the new year.
Under the proposed rate, a home valued at $300,000 would pay an extra $140 per year, down from $196. In September, council directed staff to create a budget with a tax increase of between 3.6 and 7.2 per cent.
Julia McKenzie, Director of Financial Services and Treasurer, said a number of factors lead to the higher rate, partially offset by a 23 per cent increase in revenue. According to McKenzie, material costs have gone up 44 to 65 per cent since 2021, with an inflation rate of 4.75 per cent in the same period.
Further, the town’s population grew by 11 per cent between 2014 and 2021, with a 38 per cent increase in materials and contracted services to support more people using town facilities and programs. One-time COVID funding is also no longer available, representing an 18 per cent decrease in the budget.
To curb the rate hike, councillors worked out $1,048,800 of savings in the budget:
- Delaying the replacement of Madill Operations Facility and fulfillment of some community requests to future budgets
- Using a portion of the Municipal Accommodation Tax and Centre Street property lease as revenue
- Reducing the Environmental Reserve transfer
- Increasing the timeframe to eliminate the infrastructure deficit from 20 years to 25
- Consider other options for multiple new positions in the Parks department
Councillor Scott Morrison, who chaired the budget deliberations, said the draft does what it can with a bad economic situation worldwide.
“Just picture yourself trying to run your household, or run your own company, and you get told that your costs are going up 60 per cent and your revenue is not,” said Morrison. “Everybody that brought forward budget items had to do exactly what they were doing—or less—with a lot less money and a cost of 60 per cent more. I don’t know how we could possibly think of a budget that doesn’t go up, when you think of that.”
Committee did not pass the budget, instead voting to revisit budget deliberations in the New Year.
“We’ll come back in January, we’ll regroup,” said Morrison. “We had a lot of good discussion today, some good information coming, and we’ll do the best we can.”
