According to the former bank manager now sitting comfortably in the mayor's chair, a 10 per cent municipal tax increase "is not something to get excited about." What taxpayers around here are subjected to on an annual basis is a dance called the DOS two-step: public administrators spend beyond their means and then expect home and business owners to underwrite their profligacy.
To the usual suspects of escalating Adventure Centre operating costs and well over a half-million dollars annually in Squamish Oceanfront development debt-servicing charges, we can now add so-called beyond-our-control infrastructure upgrades and a mushrooming policing tab.
The most recent Squamish financial plan promises to "ensure the allocation of taxes is equitable." How many salaried and hourly wage earners in this municipality will receive a generous 10 per cent pay increase this year? What is the likelihood that pensioners will get a double-digit top-up?
Some serious cost-cutting measures and non-tax-based revenue generating strategies need to be considered. If district officials are searching for a new source of funding, they don't have to look too far. Since 2008, according to one report, $61 million in traffic fine revenue has been returned to municipalities to help with policing and public safety. Why not talk the Mounties into actually enforcing speed limits and other traffic regulations on the Sea to Sky Raceway on a consistent basis and then request a share of the ticket mother lode from the province? That steady cash flow would go a long way towards covering our significant RCMP tab.
When it comes to saving money, let's reverse the bureaucratic creep at muni hall. Apparently, plans are afoot to hire an events overseer, a job that could readily be handled by existing district staff. Two years ago, the DOS hired an economic development coordinator. In short order, an assistant to that position popped up on the municipal payroll. That newly hatched department is now lobbying for the creation of a $40,000 Squamish commercial/industrial plan. If in fact we need an addition to the growing catalogue of similar district-funded studies, a more realistic approach would be to produce the document in-house at no extra cost to taxpayers.
As well, council is planning to allocate a substantial sum for downtown revitalization. Does that make sense in this financially challenged environment?
And then we come to the annual Adventure Centre cap-in-hand act. The most recent operating shortfall is $150,000, a mirror image of last year's deficit. After nearly a decade of delusional notions about this monetarily strapped enterprise pulling itself up by its own bootstraps, cozying up to a deep-pocketed business associate sounds more realistic with every passing day.
Unless these spendthrift budgetary practices at muni hall are reversed, local taxpayers may soon be looking for some new dance partners.
