After three days of deliberations by Chatham-Kent councillors, the municipal budget has been approved with an overall tax increase of 2.97 per cent.
The tax increase amounts to an additional $86 per year for a house assessed at $171,000. While the increase is almost one percent higher than the 1.99 per cent increase that was approved in 2019, it's a sharp decline in the proposed tax hike of 4.99 per cent that administration presented to council two weeks ago.
"I think council heard through the community engagement sessions that we had with our constituents that the 4.99 [per cent] was not acceptable and not affordable," said Councillor Melissa Harrigan. "We needed to prioritize and find ways to get that number down and at budget committee, I think we did just that."
During the final day of debate on Thursday, the budget committee's largest cut from the budget was a $400,000 provision that would have been used for wage benchmarking, which ensures Chatham-Kent is providing the market rate for salaries when hiring internally.
"While we recognize that we want to make sure that people are getting paid fairly and are making good money for the good work that they do, this is a year with a tax increase [where] we had to identify what our priorities were," said Harrigan.
Councillors also passed a motion from Councillor Doug Sulman to reduce funding for winter control salt materials from $125,000 to $75,000.
While most of the evening councillors pursued cuts to the budget, Councillor Anthony Ceccacci entered a successful motion to fund a $200,000 pilot project to aid those with riverfront properties affected by high water levels, such as those who live along Erie Shore Drive. Councillors voted in favour of providing up to 85 free sandbags per household during high water levels when flood warnings have been declared.
"Rising lake waters and floodwaters have been an issue across the municipality for quite some time... I think for people, especially homeowners who are impacted or people who are living near lakes and rivers, they're just looking for any kind of support and indication that the municipality is willing to provide that support," said Harrigan. "It's a low-cost project, it allows us to provide some support, which could be the difference of somebody's basement flooding and not flooding because of high water levels."
Harrigan added that the sandbag initiative remains a pilot project and administration will evaluate whether or not the project is making a difference and if it's worth continuing.
An additional $60,000 was also added to the budget Thursday night after Councillor John Wright entered a successful motion to install a crosswalk at Naahii Ridge Public School in Ridgetown, citing student safety.
There was also an attempt to cut another $110,000 that had been budgeted to be set aside for the municipality's proposed multi-purpose sports complex. While the sports complex remains conditional on provincial funding that has yet to be confirmed, councillors defeated the motion with the majority arguing that any unused funds would be used to upgrade existing Chatham-Kent arenas.
"There was a question around whether we should pull it out or should we keep it in, but at the end of the day, Chatham-Kent has 10 arenas that we have to fund and all of them have high needs," said Harrigan. "So if [it's] not going to be spent on the project... I am sure we will find great places to spend [it]."
In the finalized budget, a total of 1.22 per cent of the 2.97 per cent tax increase is a result of provincial downloads, which occur when the Ontario government shifts sources of funding from the provincial income and sales tax onto municipal taxpayers. Chatham-Kent had to factor in around $2.3 million worth of downloads into the 2020 budget, including $898,000 from public health services and $244,000 from land ambulance services. Councillors were able to cut $419,906 of those downloads on Wednesday by reducing Child Care and Early Years services expansion funding by 20 per cent.