'What do we cut?'

It’s that time of the year again—no, not the impending Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa and, this year, Ramadan celebrations. It is the start of the city’s budget deliberations for next year, a time that definitely does not bring a sense of joy to most people, including Kamloops city councillors.

Emails have already started to come in complaining about the potential for more than a 9% tax increase in the city in 2025. As deputy mayor last month (colleague and friend Coun. Bill Sarai took over as deputy mayor for December) the best response I can give is to acknowledge receipt of the letters and forego any explanation

The reality is none of us know what the final number will be until next spring, after staff have looked one more time – and then a few more times – to see where cuts can be made, projects delayed or even scrapped.

And therein lies the conundrum. Cut, delay, scrap, they each mean reduced services to the city and its residents.

What do we cut? Of course the first reply from many people would be salaries, but that’s just not going to happen. Maybe through attrition the total may be reduced but most of our 900-plus employees are members of unions and those wages have been determined. In the case of our RCMP officers, council never has a say in that bargaining. The federal government does it and then sends us the bill.

This year another RCMP-related bill has come along as well, with the city – which means all of us – has to pay for body-worn cameras and new, more modern weapons. The cost to provide police services in Kamloops is the largest item in the budget, almost $450 of the taxes paid on an average-priced house.

More than $300 on that house’s tax bill goes to pay for the city’s fire service. About $250 keeps transit running – a contracted service B.C. Transit provides and partially pays for.

Are these the services we want to see cut?

While on the subject of cutting the “overpaid” senior staff, let’s remember the legal ramifications if we ever did that, which city councillors are smart enough to understand. Two words – “wrongful dismissal” – can mean seven-figure payouts.

More information about what taxes pay (in the city) is available online at Letstalkkamloops.ca.

Suffice to say the three items listed above are the biggest items (making up a residential tax bill in Kamloops). Recreation and culture, pools, arenas and drainage each cost less than $100, facilities and social programs cost less than $50 each year.

This year, our financial wizards will include separate line items for taxes the city collects but then sends on to the organizations which require us to do this for them. That includes the Thompson Nicola Regional District, which is also just starting to determine its tax rates, the B.C, Assessment Authority, School District 73 and the Municipal Finance Authority, as well as the local hospital board.

Rest assured, council will ask the tough questions for justification of the tax rate as we review it. The meeting on supplementary budget requests, which usually come from our community, will also be difficult because the asks are reasonable but still bring a cost.

Back to the point of this column, the days of 1% or 2% increases are gone. Just as all of us are dealing with increased costs – almost $10 for a bag of mandarin oranges – the cost to run a growing city has increased too. But we don’t buy oranges. We buy fire trucks for improved fire protection. We hire firefighters to provide better service in our neighbourhoods. We hire police officers to protect us. We buy electricity to keep the lights on in all our facilities. We pump a few lakes’ worth of water into our pools and many rivers’ worth of water through our taps and into our toilets. We put a fleet of trucks out at all hours of the day and night when the snow comes down.

So, what should we cut?

Dale Bass is a Kamloops city councillor and was deputy mayor for month of November.