York Region to consider asking province for power to add new taxes

YorkRegion.com
March 23, 2017
Lisa Queen  

If you already feel tax collectors have their hands in your wallet too much as it is, this won’t come as good news.

York Region is looking at the possibility of asking the province to allow it to introduce new taxes, or "revenue tools," as bureaucrats and politicians prefer to call them.

The region, which is talking to officials from other municipalities in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area to see if they are in the same boat, is eyeing taxes Toronto is permitted to implement such as land transfer, vehicle registration, alcohol, tobacco, entertainment and billboard taxes, Yi Luo, York’s manager of forecasting and policy, said.

That is not to say council would choose to implement all those taxes, she said.

At the moment, municipalities other than Toronto can only rely on property taxes, development charges on new growth, user rates such as water and wastewater fees and transit fares, and some minimal fines and penalties.

A report outlining various fiscal pressures faced by the region and advocating for additional revenue-raising powers is expected to come before councillors in April or May, Luo said.

“The reason why we’re investigating the potential new revenue sources is that the region really faces the dual challenge of servicing the tremendous amount of growth that we’re anticipating, and also making sure that our large and growing asset base (such as roads, water treatment facilities, social housing and paramedic services) is kept in a state of good repair so that we can do both those things in a financially sustainable way to continue to provide the kind of quality services that we provide to our residents.”

The region’s assets, not including land owned by the region, are now valued at $11 billion, Luo said.

The region’s 10-year capital plan calls for $6.1 billion worth of investments, with more than 60 per cent required to accommodate growth.

The transportation master plan shows $22.1 billion is needed until 2041 for roads and transit infrastructure. 

“We’re basically only meeting a fraction of that need. When you look at the gap, it’s tremendous,” Luo said.

“Basically, what we’re saying is we’re a growing municipality, we have a large population. But when you look at the kind of tools we have to address these pressures, we have the same tools as a small town in Ontario. Our existing tools don’t have the capacity to allow us to address all of those problems.”

Council has made financially prudent decisions in the past, including adopting an annual fiscal strategy since 2014 to manage the capital plan, reduce reliance on debt, and save for the future, Luo said.

At the same time, she acknowledged the region’s debt will hit a peak of $2.9 billion this year before beginning to decline next year.

Last April, the region also boosted the monthly regional portion of water and wastewater bills by 9 per cent a year for five years and by 2.9 per cent in 2021 to maintain infrastructure. The increases don’t include the local municipal portion of the bill.