Last year city council was split on a 2.96 per cent tax hike. Some opposed a one per cent hike to fund reserves. Others said it's important to fund reserves for a rainy day. Click here for the story.
The question was posed at an all-candidates meeting on Oct. 23
What will you do to address a 15 per cent rise in property taxes over the next five years?
- Dan Baxter, RCC, said he would initiate a full spending review. "If I'm elected that's a good place to start. It will give us a very good overview of where the money will be spent."
- Grace Tsang, Renew Richmond, also said finances should be reviewed.
- Sunny Ho, Richmond Reform, said he would reuce taxes 10 per cent over his term.
- Jerome Dickey said the city should start at zero-based budgeting. He said development cost charges should be raised. "If growth is good for us, why are taxes going up?" asked Dickey.
- Elsa Wong promised to "scrutinize the budget." She said Richmond First will "examine everything line by line to ensure they are real expenses. We promise to balance the budget and keep the budget at less than three per cent level of increase."
Wong also said her slate would not put any "extra burden" on the tax rate beyond the inflationary rate.
- Harold Steves, RCA, noted the city already does zero-based budgeting. He noted inflation results in costlier services.
"Basically If you are saying you want to keep taxes at zero, what services are you going to cut? We have to be cognizant of the fact we need to increase community policing and if we're going to hire 10 per cent more police then we're not going to do it with a tax cut."
- Chak Au, of the Richmond Community Coalition, said the city needs to look where it can find money to save.
"We propose we need to look at the bigger picture first and see where we can save tax dollars … to just come with a figure and say we are going to cut down by this percentage or just come up with a one time tax break in an election year is not the kind of answer or solution we are looking for. We have to address the root problems and find long term sustainable solutions. And that has to begin with an external audit of public spending that we promise."
- Ken Johnston said he voted against the increase last year.
"What I said was, why was it automatic? Yes we have costs, no we're not cutting programs no were not cutting services. But it shouldn't be automatic. a rollback or a freeze is not realistic. …What we're saying - the Richmond Community Coalition - is we want to bring an independent third person out to look at it - it's not an audit, it's not a KPMG audit folks, that's done all the time. It's a systems audit. To make sure the money is being spent is value being spent."
- Bill McNulty says Richmond First voted against the tax hike last year and noted "we want to give you the taxpayers a break."
- Dave Semple (former parks manager) said "let's look at what the city has done and what it is. Yes they're accountable and have to be accountable. Now, we have to be accountable to the province.
He said "the biggest thing that happened is we are a no pesticide city. The ramifications for doing that — other communities upped parks budget by over 25-30 per cent more because you have to find manual ways of do it."
He said the solution is finding creative solutions to maintaining services and programs while reducing costs to do it.
He said "keeping services high is important because it keeps the city safe and scrutiny is important."
