By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle
After multiple public meetings focused on cutting the 2024 budget after Osoyoos taxpayers bauked at the original 39 per cent hike in taxes and user fees, Osoyoos Council finally passed the budget with a lower 24 per cent increase, but without the support of two councillors – Jim King and Myers Bennett.
When asked by the Times Chronicle what the reason was for voting against the adoption of the budget – given there were substantial opportunities to reduce it and it had in fact been trimmed significantly from its first iteration – both councillors said they would have liked to cut more.
“I feel we could have done a better job of bringing it down lower, that’s really the reason,” Councillor Jim King said.
When asked why he didn’t wrangle more cuts given the multiple opportunities afforded, King said: “I tried bringing a couple of things forward to reduce it and never got the support of my colleagues.”
Similarly Councillor Myers Bennett felt more trimming should be done before the budget was passed. “Council really trimmed the budget but I felt it still was not enough.
“I thought there was more cutting that needs to be done and I suggested we cut back on some of the other areas and when I suggested it was defeated.”
This included moving to reduce the Sewer Assessment from $1.323 million down to $1.0 million which was “defeated right at the start of the meeting,” he notes.
“So when the majority of council stated they were not interested in reducing the Sewer Assessments, I decided not to move reducing the water Assessment down and the Fire Department reserves from $338,000 to 228,000.
“That would have been another saving of $753,000 to the taxpayer and still would have started the processing of Assessment plans by putting away $2,238,000 in the three funds,” he notes.
One of the key items for King was the issue of reserves. “I know we need reserves and I know we are playing catch up but I don’t believe we had to put so much money into reserves to move forward.”
King was keen on bringing down water and sewer despite understanding the criticality of fixing both key pieces of infrastructure. “I mean I understand those are the big issues that gotta be fixed,” he said before taking a run at two other councillors.
“We had two colleagues that ran on no increase in taxes and they seem to be quite content at 24 per cent,” he said in reference to Johnny Cheong and Zach Poturica who were both new councillors elected in the fall of 2022.
The reality of what budget cuts this year will mean for next year(s) is not lost on Bennett. He noted that in his previous stint in council, there was pressure to keep the tax increase capped at 3.0 per cent.
“Before everybody said it can’t go over 3.0 per cent because of the seniors. Everybody else was doing 9, 12 per cent. I said if we do 3.0 per cent it’s going to catch up with us, and guess what?”
King also expressed his concern over the fact other tax bodies outside of Osoyoos’ control – like the RDOS, library, school board etc – have not submitted their tax levies.
“Those numbers haven’t come in yet, they won’t come in until mid-April and those numbers could add another 4-10 per cent onto the 24 per cent,” he said.
When asked if he was privy to what those numbers might look like, he said “No, but my guess would be a bit of a hike. Even if they come in like last year, they’re going to add another 4-6 per cent,” he said.
At the end of the day, Bennett says he would have liked to have seen the increase much lower, but acknowledges substantial work to trim it was put in by all parties to trim the hike to 24 per cent, as much as 60 hours pouring over the document in his case.
“I respect my colleagues for their stand and of course support the vote of the majority and plan on working hard with them to find a solution to these downfalls being caused by a sudden push by senior government for small communities to fund these massive Asset Management Plans.”
