Maple Ridge council approves budget with proposed 5.65 per cent tax hike

Maple Ridge city council has approved a financial plan for 2023 that will result in a property tax increase of 5.65 per cent if adopted.

Through two lengthy business planning sessions on Monday and Wednesday, staff presented new council spending in three different tiers, with proposed increases of 3.77 per cent, 4.38 per cent, or 5.65 per cent. They opted for the tier that included all of the spending requests from city staff, which was labelled “accelerating investment in key priorities.”

Staff gave councillors a 158-page financial overview, and it notes the first-year council will benefit from a one-time grant of $16.5 million from the province. These funds were taken from the provincial government’s $5 billion budget surplus.

The budget document notes one of the key cost drivers this year is a $1.12 million increase in the RCMP contract, to $23.8 million, that the city has no discretion to change. Infrastructure maintenance calls for $7.1 million, which is a $600,000 increase. The fire department expenditure will increase by $580,000 to $14 million.

The budget sets out a property tax increase of 3.5 per cent to reflect existing costs only, then showed councillors incremental increases to improve service levels.

Some of the expenditures recommended in the report would cover new positions for digital marketing, municipal training, accounting, human resources, and others. These would bring the tax increase to 4.38 per cent, at the second tier level.

Staff also presented investment in key council priorities, labelled as “for discussion.” These tier three expenses would include a gardener and seasonal labourers in the downtown core for $271,000, two RCMP constables at $342,000, two bylaws officers for $215,000, and other positions, that would combine with tiers one and two to increase taxes to 5.65 per cent.

Staff had recommended council approve tier two spending, or 4.38 per cent. City CAO Scott Hartman said staff was comfortable with that rate and recommended it.

The tier three rate “would help move the mandate sooner and quicker and faster, to get you where you want to be,” he said.

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“It’s a tough year for many people in our province, and in our community, and many families are really struggling with inflation, and costs, and the just the cost of living is expensive,” said Coun. Korleen Carreras.

“But the other challenge is as a community we’ve really, I think, in many ways, neglected moving our community forward, and we are going to have to make some very difficult choices going forward, so that we create a community that people want to be a part of, and want to live in.”

Council’s decision came down to choosing between approving tiers one and two only, or also adding tier three. Ultimately, the tier two option was described as “bare bones.”

Councillors Judy Dueck and Onyeka Dozie asked staff about the prospects of putting off some of the new hirings until the 2024 budget year. Dueck suggested hiring one RCMP officer this year, and one next. Ultimately council decided there may be new spending priorities next year.

Dozie said the spending proposals were not unreasonable.

“But the fact is that, we know that citizens are in trouble, including myself – I find it very difficult to pay all of the taxes that are coming my way,” he said. “We can not be oblivious of the fact that there are people out there who are suffering.”

But he said if council is going to have a big increase, it should be in the first year of their term.

“This is our first year here. If we are going to make any difficult decision, I strongly recommend we do it now, as bad as it is, we make that decision today, knowing we have about two or three years to make up for it.”

Coun. Jenny Tan wanted to avoid putting off expenditures for future years, and potentially facing an increase with greater “sticker shock.”

She said the city is not close to having the highest property tax increase in the region. Tan called 5.65 per cent tax increase “a reasonable tax increase given the financial situation that we are in.” She said the budget will set up the city for the long term.

“We’re a far cry from some of our municipal colleagues in metro, that are north of 10 (per cent),” echoed Hartman.

Coun. Ahmed Yousef said he has voted against three of the past four budgets, but could support this one. He said he would support tier three, because “we want to get things done today, for our community, how we want to be a leader, how we have our 150th anniversary coming up next year, as well as the BC Summer Games that we’ll be hosting.

“There are a lot of synergies that are coming into place, for us to be able to stand behind staff’s proposal in this case,” Yousef said.

The cost for an average residence, with an assessed value of $986,000, will be $2,512 for municipal taxes, plus fees including recycling ($83), water ($753), and sewer ($537). In addition, property taxes will be levied for school taxes, BC assessment authority, TransLink, Metro and a small amount for the Municipal Finance Authority, which are not included in this total.

“It’s going out for public consultation, this is not the final decision,” said Carreras. “Hearing from the public is really important to me.”

The budget feedback period is March 30 to April 14. The financial plan and tax rate bylaws will be back at council’s committee of the whole on April 18. Then council will give the bylaws three readings on April 25. The final reading is scheduled for May 9.

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