You could pay $212 more in taxes, fees in Markham in 2018 on average
Councillor wonders if staff reductions could help with 'impact' of minimum-wage bill

Yorkregion.com
Tim Kelly
Nov. 20, 2017

Your property taxes could rise by a proposed $212 on the average Markham residential property assessed at $647,500 for the coming year.

That number combines your local city of Markham tax bill, the Region of York tax bill, along with your expected water and wastewater fee as well as your stormwater fee.

Broken down, the individual tax rates come in at 2.9 per cent in Markham, 2.77 per cent at York Region and 7.5 per cent for water and wastewater for 2018.

The city takes 25.12 per cent of your tax dollar, while the province receives 24.33 per cent for education costs. The balance of your tax dollar, or 50.55 per cent, goes to the Region of York for regional services.

The big development of 2018 is Ontario’s Bill 148, which changes the minimum wage on Jan. 1 to $14 per hour from the current $11.60. A large number of Markham’s part-time workers, especially students, are paid minimum wage, and the cost to Markham taxpayers is expected to add $2.5 million in 2018.

Coun. Amanda Collucci wondered if there was a plan “to reduce head count to deal with the impact of Bill 148?”

Coun. Don Hamilton said, “Do you mean firing staff?”

She said she had heard from residents who wondered “if this (letting staff go) could be an option,” to deal with increased costs.

Chief administrative officer Andy Taylor said a staff reduction didn’t make much sense.

"A lot of our part-time staff relate to core services that we offer. The summer student contingent relates to parks, recreation all year, culture. And they're all tied to revenue, and you can't remove those part-time staff without affecting programming. That strategy is not the most effective, because we rely on that revenue and the staffing that goes with it," Taylor said.

“If you take out the staffing, you lose the revenue, and you’re just in a deeper hole. We want to keep our parks neat and tidy, our boulevards neat and tidy, and our recreation programs full,” he said.

In order to deal with the new cost, the city has decided to split the $2.5 million between the taxpayer and user groups. Twenty-seven per cent of the $2.5-million bill was added to the tax increase for an increase of 0.46 per cent. The other 73 per cent of the $2.5-million increase is being borne in increased user fees for user groups in 2018 and beyond.

The city said without Bill 148, the tax increase would have come in at 2.44 per cent, with 0.50 per cent added for infrastructure reserves and a base increase of 1.94 per cent. However, Bill 148 costs for minimum wage pushed the increase to 2.9 per cent.

The next meeting to discuss the budget will take place at the city's general committee, at Markham Civic Centre, on Monday, Dec. 4, at 9 a.m.