Average Aurora homeowner will pay $109 more in taxes this year

Aurora Banner
March 20, 2014
By Brea Bartholet

You can expect a 3.75-per-cent hike in the town portion of your taxes after Aurora council voted in favour of the 2014 budget last night.

The increase will cost you $72.83, based on a house assessed at $550,000 in 2012 or 2013. Combined with the York Region’s tax increase, you can expect to pay an extra $109.44 on average.

The combined residential tax increase, including town, region and education, now stands at 1.99 per cent, down from the projected 2.10 per cent town staff brought forward in early February.

A full-time special events assistant position was pushed back to a start date of June 1 to save $16,700. Council’s contingency budget was also decreased by $20,000, among other adjustments made.

The 3.75-per-cent increase breaks down as follows:

- Improving services, meeting demands brought on by growth and increased insurance, employee benefit and postage costs make up 1.28 percentage points

- Central York Fire Services and emergency preparedness account for 1.55 percentage points

- Infrastructure sustainability funding, long-term planning and reducing reliance on interest earned from proceeds from the sale of Aurora Hydro account for 0.92 percentage points.

The continued increase in taxes in a concern, Councillor Chris Ballard said, as many Aurorans are living on fixed or lower incomes due to economic instability.

“I have difficulty supporting the budget and I wish we could have sat down to look at budgeting practices in other municipalities to see how they set their rate,” he said. “I’m concerned with the 3.75, so let’s keep our fingers crossed that our economy is as strong as we hope it is.”

Mayor Geoff Dawe swiftly retorted Councillor Ballard made more points at that moment than he did throughout the budget process.

“I would have appreciated if you brought those concerns up earlier,” he added.

Mr. Dawe continued to express his support for the finalized numbers determined by staff.

“I think council has worked very hard. We postponed a meeting to make sure people who could not attend would be present,” he said. “If you look at the numbers, we have had the most effective tax management in this town of the last 10 years and it all comes from the work of staff.”

Council also approved increasing the town’s full-time staff complement by two, to 207.