Cost savings bringing Stouffville tax hike down

Budget meeting at town hall Tuesday

Yorkregion.com
Jan. 22, 2016
By Sandra Bolan

Whitchurch-Stouffville residents may be getting a bit of a tax break.

The 2016 draft budget presented in December called for a 2.5-per-cent tax increase, for the town portion only, which is about $60 more for people owning a single-family home assessed at $553,855.

An updated draft budget has the tax hike, town portion only, reduced to 1.95 per cent, which is $44 more for a single-family detached home assessed at $575,000, according to the staff report.

Between the treasurer and department heads, the town has found about $144,400 or 0.59 per cent in savings, according to the report.

They include everything from the removal of redundancies within newly combined departments to missed development charge revenue, as well as the re-instatement and addition of new fees.

In previous years, council has directed an additional 1 per cent in taxes to capital reserves. Council has yet to direct staff on this issue.

The municipality currently has a debt of $35,031,607, with an annual repayment of $3,731,475.

The debt is funded by development charges (72 per cent) and taxes (28 per cent), according to the report. This comes to $2,825 per household.

The province has an annual payment to own source revenue ratio cap of 25 per cent.

Last year, council put the municipality’s cap at 12.5 per cent.

If the budget were to be passed as proposed, that annual repayment would be at 8 per cent, according to the report.

The budget meeting begins Jan. 26, 9 a.m. in council chambers. It is open to the public.