Budget documents are online. The council will debate the budget on Jan 17th (and possibly 18th as well). I encourage everyone to take a look at documents posted on Milton’s website and let me know what they think.
For my part I intend to keep the overall tax increase below the rate of inflation this year.
Are you looking to keep the overall tax increase below the rate of inflation, or just the Town portion? Because the projected increase for the Region is quite low and the education portion isn’t rising at all, so even with a 4% or 5% increase for the Town the overall increase for the taxpayer would only be about 2% – 2.5%.
I’m all for keeping taxes low – I’m just concerned that we’re falling into the trap of continually delaying needed service increases, and that we’ll eventually find ourselves so badly under-serviced that Milton is no longer an appealing place to live.
@Jennifer Smith,
Just the Town’s portion. Rate of inflation in Ontario is 3.4%. I am equally concerned with delaying essential services. I’ve gone through the budget document several times and I think I can do both.
Hi Zeeshan
Following up on Jennifer’s comment, I’m concerned about how the services needed to keep Milton a great place can be financed with a 3.4% increase. Wonderful if it can be done but I remember when the growth first started and Council was adamant about keeping increases at the rate of inflation, about 2% then. The lack of investment resulted in a big problem with all the new traffic trying to get along the old road system. Mattamy’s 30 M interest free loan allowed for that situation to be addressed but our fire dept is still understaffed and our library opening hours the most limited for a municipality over 30 000 pop. in the province. The tax increases in the last few years have allowed “baby steps”, as the fire chief says, in catching up yet but there is still a long way to go.