I have a problem with Helmut Manzl’s article, Property tax hike (June 22) explaining the District of Squamish property tax increase, he appears to have drank the Kool Aid.
Before I proceed too far, some basic accounting 101 is necessary.
We have two kinds of costs, fixed and variable.
In a personal life, a fixed cost may be groceries, hydro, phone bill etc. A variable cost may be a Ferrari or an African Safari.
Now, I ask you to stretch a little and I will move to our municipality.
Previous examples of our fixed costs were library costs, rec centre costs, infrastructure upgrades, policing and fire department costs.
In general, the municipal fixed costs are those incurred to operate the community on behalf of the taxpayers.
Then we have the variable costs and that covers a wide variety of costs that are not necessary for the operation of the community but are on our wish list.
Now what seems to have slowly happened is the previous variable costs have snuck into the fixed cost side and our fixed costs have become variable.
There isn’t a whole lot of disagreement about incurring the costs necessary for operation of the District for the benefit of the community, but the problem is with the costs that have moved and are now fixed .
We now have a Ferrari but we can’t afford the groceries.
An old adage is that when there is a budget shortfall to cover non-essential services the citizens will be given a choice between higher taxes or loss of services
Reporter Jennifer Thuncher wrote a story about the accounting integrity of the District’s balance sheet, I question the revenue statement and the day-to-day operation of our community.
By bringing this evaluation forward right now I just see throwing more mud in the water, not helpful but maybe that was the plan.
Yes, this is our community and taxpayers decide the direction, but the taxpayer seems to have fallen to being considered an inconvenience.
Hospital problems, highway problems, really? I would have never thought.
Dave Colledge
Brackendale
