Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
But the city has a process for dealing with what money they need. It is the 3 year capital spending budget. If the priorities this money is going to are required it should have been brought in through the budget process and funded through a rate increase. Its not like we are at some goldilocks tax rate where marginally more tax would make us overtaxed so they couldnt have collected 52 mil more to fund projects.
I agree with more money into transit but that should have to compete at budget time and an actual tax increase to residents. So I perfered give it back and tax me later.
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Actually, one might argue that is exactly what happened. Were it not for the fact that it would have caused an "overly large" tax increase, the budget likely would've included more things on the wish list.
I get the argument that we should stay within the spirit of the budget that we arrived at through a rigorous process. But part of that process was determining what an acceptable tax increase was, and I also believe that the $51 million MSI (provincial funding for municipal infrastructure) cut was after the budget was set. So really, if the choice is between keeping the 5% tax increase and replacing our lost MSI, or a 1% tax increase and losing the MSI, then I think it's actually the former that more closely respects the original budget.