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Keep in or cut from budget
Remove from budget 90%  90%  [ 9 ]
Keep in budget 10%  10%  [ 1 ]
Total votes : 10
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 11:57 am 
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FYI "Town Levy Increase" is assuming all of the lower number items were also cut...so if your picking and choosing things out of priority, then the "Town Levy Increase" number will no longer be valid.

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If you have any questions about this description of change, or would like to debate it, then please do so before voting. Only vote if you are 100% sure you understand this budget item and it's impact.

Please read the sticky post that has instructions before voting on any of these polls.


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 4:55 pm 
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Edit: never mind, I realized I can't take the time required to research these or read any of the docs. I'd be happy to give you my 'stabs' ... e.g., ix-nay on the rebates, things that require overtime, and transit for fri/sat nights (at least until milton has a much larger population) ... but I won't formally vote since I don't have the time to read thru all the budget docs. Thx.


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 9:08 am 
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miltonLeo wrote:
Edit: never mind, I realized I can't take the time required to research these or read any of the docs. I'd be happy to give you my 'stabs' ... e.g., ix-nay on the rebates, things that require overtime, and transit for fri/sat nights (at least until milton has a much larger population) ... but I won't formally vote since I don't have the time to read thru all the budget docs. Thx.
Hi MiltonLeo, Before you re-edited your post you had some questions about the details of the vacancy rebate program so just copying/pasting some answers here.
Quote:
Vacancy rebate program

Property owners of vacant commercial and industrial buildings may apply for a property tax rebate under certain specifications set out in Section 364 of The Municipal Act and Ontario Regulation 325/01, amended to O.Reg. 210/05

To be eligible for a rebate, the building or section of building must have been vacant and unused for at least 90 days and the following conditions are met:

* The entire commercial or industrial building has been unused for at least 90 days.
* A suite(s) or unit(s) within a commercial building has been vacant for at least 90 consecutive days and is
o unused; and clearly delineated or physically separated from the used portions of the building; and capable of being leased for immediate occupation, or
o not capable of being leased for immediate occupancy because it is undergoing or in need of repairs/renovations or is unfit for occupation.
* A portion of an industrial building has been vacant for at least 90 consecutive days and is
o unused; and clearly delineated or physically separated from the used portions of the building.

Exclusions from rebates

No rebate applications will be considered for properties:

* where seasonal businesses operate involving closing the building for a portion of the year
* where buildings or portions of buildings are vacant but leased to a tenant
* where land is considered vacant (e.g. new buildings that have never been occupied)
I realize the budget documents are fairly large. I'm not asking every person in Milton to read the budget docs. I was just making a method for people who are interested in 'polling' their input on certain budget items that are under consideration for inclusion and/or exclusion. It would be my desire that if you are interested in taking part in these informal 'polls' that people would spend the time to read the documents (and ask questions) so as to try to make their poll votes as informed as possible.

Feel free to call me on the phone or email me directly any thoughts or topics you'd like to discuss about the budget. If possible I'm also open for meeting for coffee and I can bring my copy of the budget with me and go over it with you or anyone who's interested.

I'm a bit twisted in that I actually enjoy reading the budget documents. I went through previous years when I wasn't a councillor as well so for myself it's always been some enjoyable reading in my spare time. Now that I'm a councillor I get the added bonus that it's a responsibility.

Thanks for your input on friday/saturday night transit.

One interesting document about transit is the 2009-2013 Strategic plan for Transit services. Our original plan had our municipal subsidy decreasing each year and our cost recovery ratio improving each year as transit revenues were forcasted to go up while transit expenditures were forecasted to remain fairly stable. I'm meeting with town Staff on Thursday afternoon to go over our current transit finances & future estimates and compare them to our previous studies to see where we're at according to our goals. Our 5 year strategic plan on Transit had some initially promising and affordable (IMHO) long term projections but now that we're part way through the 2009-2013 period we have to see if we're still projecting in the right direction.


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 5:06 pm 
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Thanks Rick! I appreciate the explanation.

For sure I'd vote no on that one. Let capitalism work; why dork around with property tax rebates. If it makes sense to renovate a building, then a landlord should renovate it with a view to payback and normal business decisions. And if they can't rent or repair a run-down dilapitated building, then sell it to someone who can. We shouldn't be giving tax breaks for these kinds of things, IMHO.

OTOH, it sounds like this is already a done deal if it's already mandated per "certain specifications set out in Section 364 of The Municipal Act and Ontario Regulation 325/01, amended to O.Reg. 210/05". I googled and found this:
http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/publication ... cancy.html ... thanks, Government of Ontario for making our municipal tax decisions for us, geezz.

So is the budget just anticipating an increase in these goofy applications then? If that's what it is, I'd still be tempted to give it the kibosh anyway so that it doesn't just set a higher baseline for next year. :twisted:

Thanks, Rick.


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PostPosted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 6:44 am 
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miltonLeo wrote:
Thanks Rick! I appreciate the explanation.

For sure I'd vote no on that one. Let capitalism work; why dork around with property tax rebates. If it makes sense to renovate a building, then a landlord should renovate it with a view to payback and normal business decisions. And if they can't rent or repair a run-down dilapitated building, then sell it to someone who can. We shouldn't be giving tax breaks for these kinds of things, IMHO.

OTOH, it sounds like this is already a done deal if it's already mandated per "certain specifications set out in Section 364 of The Municipal Act and Ontario Regulation 325/01, amended to O.Reg. 210/05". I googled and found this:
http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/publication ... cancy.html ... thanks, Government of Ontario for making our municipal tax decisions for us, geezz.

So is the budget just anticipating an increase in these goofy applications then? If that's what it is, I'd still be tempted to give it the kibosh anyway so that it doesn't just set a higher baseline for next year. :twisted:

Thanks, Rick.
Some of these budget "cuts" are almost free-gimme's. I mean obvious ones that will be cut and I feel that us councillors should feel almost guilty in using these items to show how we are "cutting the budget". For example with this one it's really making a reduction of $50,000 in only the projected funding amount for 2011 and that reduction is based on actual costs associated with the vacancy rebate program over the last 3 years.

So for example say we didn't cut this. If it then turns out (which would then be likely) it's $50,000 less than projected in 2011 (which would be likely) then there would be a small surplus of that amount. In reality by cutting or not cutting this we're not really affecting the 2011 end numbers. We're just affecting how they're being accounted for. The actual amount that will be spent on this is basically tied up with a legislated tax policy and how many people actually apply for this.

Another example of a free "gimme" tax cut in my opinion is #4 the "Eliminate budget for collection costs". In actuality town staff and the collection agency has found a better way to do collection accounting, we're not actually eliminating collections of delinquent accounts, it's just they found a different way to do collections and couldn't find any advantages of using the old way where some costs were paid up front.


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PostPosted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 12:01 pm 
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Well, see now...That would have been helpful to know BEFORE I shot my mouth off about "spending money to make money" Rick! LOL
That's the major problem with all these numbers. They're just numbers. They don't really have any meaning attached to them, because I haven't had them fleshed out.


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PostPosted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 8:08 pm 
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Thank you Rick. That was a really helpful explanation. Much appreciated!!

And never feel guilty about cutting the budget, even if they are almost gimmes. Because if left in, these numbers would just become the new normal .... or does staff ever recommend giving back surplus in the form of tax cuts? ... somehow I doubt it.

Keep up the good fight Rick, and keep looking for more. :-)


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