Rudderless

The restraints are off. The guardrails are gone. We are adrift—at a crucial moment in the County’s story. What Shire Hall wants, Shire Hall gets. It is now openly challenging Council to say otherwise. It thinks it knows the answer.

In March, Council asked senior leadership to conduct an exercise to see what a 10 per cent cut to the County’s operations would look like. What would it do to services? Would the impact be tolerable to County residents? This direction was given right after the 2023 budget. There was time to run the numbers and measure the effect.

For some, it was a valid attempt to impose rigour on rapidly escalating municipal spending. Others saw it as disrespectful to its staff—not a question polite people ask. Still others expected the outcome to be so horrific that it would silence their more fiscally nervous colleagues when they saw their service or program diminished. Council never got the chance to find out.

Six months later, Shire Hall said it couldn’t be done. There was no way to get there from here—that “substantive changes to service level expectations would need to occur to find budget savings in the realm of $3 million.” So no, it had tried, but there was nothing to be done.

But wasn’t the point of the exercise to provide Council with data? With information? To understand what “substantive changes” would look like? Wasn’t it up to Council to reflect the expectations of residents? Sadly, they were never given the opportunity.

In managerial-speak, Council had asked its staff for a sensitivity analysis— what would break if this or that tap were turned off. Or reduced. Or redirected. The answers could be used to buttress decision-making or reveal opportunities to reduce costs. It is a perfectly legitimate— and common—question that governors put to its management.

But the answer was no—they had looked, and there was nothing to see. And that was that. Council was assured, however, that the exercise had been worthwhile and revealed areas that would create “modest savings” for the 2024 budget.

That was then.

Last week, Shire Hall presented its proposed 2024 budget. It turns out that whatever modest savings were found in August have since disappeared. Instead of savings, Council is looking at a 12.7 per cent hike to the tax levy. Shire Hall says it needs $6 million more next year from taxpayers to run its business than it did last year.

In what other sphere of life would a 12.7 per cent increase be put on the table? Not in business. Not in labour. Neither would a federal or provincial government propose increasing taxation by double digits (at least not a democratic one).

The audacity is breathtaking.

Furthermore, Shire Hall presumes to know what residents’ “service level expectations” are, and has determined them to be untouchable. Not by Council, or anyone else.

But what about our expectations of affordability? Who is measuring the impact of unrelenting property tax and waterworks bill increases? Who is measuring our ability to pay? Who can afford to live in a community that is rapidly becoming the enclave of the very rich?

Council talks about affordability, but is powerless to manage its own house. Indeed, Council is complicit in the transformation of this place from a rural pastoral community to a bespoke residential address for the moneyed class.

In doggedly clinging to “service level expectations,” Shire Hall has driven the tax levy five times greater than it was when this community was amalgamated in 1998. Will these expectations ever be sated? When is enough, enough?

But rather than tame its avarice as it extracts evermore taxes from residents each year, Shire Hall’s appetite for tax levy increases is expanding. From 1998 to 2017, the tax levy grew by an average of 6.5 per cent annually—each increase building on the last. From $10.3 million the tax levy soared to nearly $35 million by 2017 (while the population remained unchanged).

Since 2018, however, tax levy increases have been rising faster. The average rate of tax levy increase over the last six years is now over seven per cent. It may seem a tame number, but it isn’t. It is a very loud signal that something is broken. At this rate, the tax levy will be nudging $100 million in just ten years— it will double by 2035.

Some will respond by putting more money into tax relief programs. They are good and necessary. But the effect is to raise taxes on everyone else. For the moneyed class, it is neither here nor there. It doesn’t matter to them. But it matters deeply to average working families. It matters to seniors on a fixed income. It matters to folks just trying to get by. It gets harder every year in Prince Edward County. They love their community, but know they can live elsewhere for much less. They feel Shire Hall is leaving them behind.

They are unsure who is steering this ship.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca