By most accounts, Squamish council's 2013 budgeting process was a fiasco from which no one - save, perhaps, municipal staff - emerged happy. That's because its starting point was a questionable assumption that municipal service levels could not, or should not, be cut.
The result? A 10.4 per cent average residential tax increase that at least one lawmaker, Coun. Ron Sander, labeled "unsustainable." As a result, this past summer -faced with a forecasted 11 per cent increase for 2014 -council decided to take a different tack, this time ordering staff to present a picture of what a zero per cent increase would look like in terms of municipal service levels. No one expects to flatline it on the final budget, of course -the zero per cent thing is just a tool that puts all the cars in the showroom and allows council to kick the tires, weighing one against the others. But at least this time, they have a fighting chance of limiting the hike to the single digits - seven or less, one would hope. It also helps that they have a three-month head start this time around.
But they can't do it without you. Sure, it's early in the game, and budgets are boring, aren't they? Well, yes and no. Of all the decisions council makes, none is more central to the job of running our community. What's more, budget 2014 is an election budget - incumbents hoping to seek another term in office will have to run at least partly on the final document that emerges from this process next spring. And those hoping to unseat them may well find the seeds of a 2014-'17 council seat therein.
Starting with a council workshop next Tuesday (Nov. 19), and followed by a three-week community engagement period, locals are invited to help lawmakers set the direction for that budget. Whether it's defending a favoured program against the budget-cutting axe, lobbying for a tax hike that's as small as it can be or asking about something you consider wasteful (e.g. why are there football lines and goalposts at the turf field when no football teams play there?), this is your chance to weigh in.
It's easy, it's well, almost painless, and who knows? You might well wind up saving yourself some money come tax time 2014.
- David Burke
