Quote:
Originally Posted by Claeren
If your property taxes were $1200 in 1998 and rose at 5% per year (and i believe it has been less than that) then your 2008 taxes would be $1960, LESS than your income tax growth.
Further though is that the city (arguably) offers more services you actually use than any other level of government, but has the least power to increase revenues AND has had the highest inflation rate in services they do provide.
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Yours is a pretty sympathetic view for Mayor Dave -and I get the opposite is also true
The fact is property tax is not tied to income. That's not the city's fault; it is what it is. It's also a fact that the overall take of the feds and province is shrinking as a % of the economy. The overall take of the city(cities, really) is increasing. Maybe this is justified. Certainly if you include infrastructure it is to some extent.
But city tax has not gone from $1200 to $2000. It's gone from $600 to about $1200 or $1400. And what gets funded from this?
Not building new roads or development
Not Health Care
Not Education
Not Water, Sewer or Electricity
Not even that much of leisure or transit or police
We are spending 350k to update content on calgary.ca though. Thats worth it. And another mil or 2 in office space downtown. Because clearly city workers need some of the most expsive real estate in the country under their feet.
I'd argue it's the least important things that in fact we rarely use. And they're being funded in the most expensive ways possible. All while the city runs a surplus and sits on $150 mil in unallocated reserves.
Maybe $40 million from the feds should be used for a new science centre instead of something like affordable housing. Maybe we should spend $10 mil 'imagining' a crime free city instead of $10 mil on police to create it. Maybe we should pay CED a few mil a year to hold conferences and lunch and learns....after all nobody else in the city does those.
Or maybe we should leave $50 a month in Calgarians pockets, especially those who can least afford it, and look at new interpretive centres and feel good seminars when we're not in hyper-growth, hyper expensive times.
If we need - I mean absolutely need - to spend $10 mil so Calgarians can dial 3-1-1 instead of 268-city, so be it. But I think the city should first say, how can I save the $10 mil? and second say, how can I make every old lady and young family pay for this? Unfortunately all they say is the latter. Or rather, how many things can I make them pay for.
No government is less accountable, less open, or less fiscally reponsible. IMO that means they should be the least willing to ever ask for more money.
