What do you get for 1.09 +.75? Another explainer.

We finished the budget on the 17th of December with a 1.09 percent tax increase. That's on top of the capital levy of .75%

What do you get out of it? Well, among other things: the beginnings of a waterfront splashpad, a revamped park at Sunset Point, a rescue boat, flush toilets at Fisher Field, a sidewalk on the east side of Hurontario south of the public high school, and water and sewer works redone on Napier south of Hume. Oh, and your roads and sidewalks plowed pretty promptly and firefighters at the ready.

What do you pay? It depends on the assessed value of your house, but if it's $324K, the town part of your tax bill last year was $2191.80, and will go up $42.53, or about four bucks a month. To put it in context, HGTV on cable is 7 dollars a month.

How did we get to the final numbers? At the end of our first two meetings, on Monday the 16th, with all the things on the 'big list of things we'd like to do', the increase was edging toward 4 percent, plus the levy. I would not have supported that.

Through the next day, there appeared to be a lot of discussion between the CAO and the Treasurer, along with the department heads, and the original base budget was cut a bit, and several items on the 'big ask list' (29 service enhancements) shaved away. As we sat down for the final meeting, a new set of numbers was presented, with a 2.04% increase. After much discussion about the price of trees and the width of sidewalks, a suggestion was made by one of the councillors that we use some of the interest from the asset sale cash to pay for some of the desired items. There is $18.6M in the bank until we decide what to do with it. It's earning 2.3 percent interest, which, over a full year, adds up to more than $400K. We voted to pull $200K of that interest into this year's budget, and voila, a few more things were afforded with a smaller increase.

When it appeared we had consensus, someone asked for a recorded vote, so we had to literally stand up for this budget. The vote was unanimous.

JUST FYI: -every- vote at Collingwood Council is now a recorded vote. As of January of 2019, if you want to know how anybody voted on any item, there's a tab on the website that lists it. You can search by member, by meeting, and by motion. So, any time a councillor asks for a recorded vote at a meeting, they are grandstanding making a statement.

Some bottom lines from the notes I took during the budget process:

-The town will tax its property owners $33,933,028 in 2020, which is $1,360,375 more than last year. Of that, we're putting $1,771,500 back into reserves.
-We should find out at the end of January the size of the 'surplus' from 2019, as mentioned last time, with a report some time later.
-The town has about 60 million dollars in reserve funds at the end of 2019, down from 65 million at the end of 2018. (that would be the Judicial Inquiry) Another $800K was approved in the 2020 budget to pay the bills from the JI.
-I did not love that the improved sound system at the Eddie Bush Arena was jettisoned; as a somtimes host of the skating carnival, there are years I have to put down the microphone and just... shout, which is not cool. However, we were told there might be things that can be done to get that particular project underway, so I'm hopeful on that item.
-Of the 12 items that survived the chopping of the 29-item 'big list', 9 were on my personal 'protect' list, so I'll call that a win.

*an earlier version of this post said the tax increase this year was 1.84: the 1.09 plus the .75 capital levy. After some back-and-forth with a member of the local media, I can see why Ian took umbrage was irked at my doing the math that way and I revised the headline. $42.53 on the 'average' bill is still correct, though: 24.68 from the tax increase and 17.85 from the capital levy.