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Figure 1; Taxes and Expenses Projections |
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Owen Sound Administration Continues to Grow |
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| The Mayor Said: | |
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Not Really – In spite of the Mayor’s Assertion – check the Facts for yourself! |
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"Owen Sound’s administration has not continued to grow. In the 2023 budget, there was a reduction of 3.5 FTES. The 2024 budget recommends adding back only the part-time hours that were previously reduced and two summer student positions" Ian Boddy OwenSoundCurrent.com |
These new positions will cost of $104,000 annually. This annual increase represents a 0.3% tax increase which is about 10% of the likely 3.4% tax increase. As we saw in the past these new positions rarely disappear and continue to cost taxpayers for years. - that's staffing growth!
Below is a graphical representation of the trend of Owen Sound’s expense growth since 2011. This graph shows exactly where we are going if Council does not immediately start to aggressively attack this problem. Anyone who tries to put a positive spin on this reality is doing taxpayers an injustice. You will see below that in spite of the Mayor’s comments that we have not “not continued to grow”, the growth in taxes in the 2024 budget is in the order of $1 million and is following the trend shown in the graph below.
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Figure 1; Taxes and Expenses Projections |
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| Owen Sound Expenses Projections to 2030 |
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| Owen Sound Taxes Projections to 2030 |
Yes, both expenses and taxes are growing at rates that exceed even today’s inflation rate. It is interesting to note that the 2024 Budget shows revenue from taxation as $35,347,652. This is slightly greater than my estimate of $35,104,660. This suggests that the rate of growth of taxes is actually increasing.
This year Council is likely to ignore the facts and approve a 2024 budget with an increase of 3.4%. This is about 2.4% higher than last year’s tax increase. Georgian Bluffs is considering a 4.82% tax increase for 2024. Based on the impact this has to taxpayers, this is equivalent to a 2.1% tax increase to Owen Sound taxes. As illustrated by the above graph, if Owen Sound Council approves a 3.4% tax increase and Georgian Bluffs approves a 4.82% increase, it will take 67 years to achieve tax parity with Georgian Bluffs. To correct our current high tax situation Council should impose a tax reduction of 2% in 2024. If they do and keep this reduction in the following years we will achieve tax parity with Georgian Bluffs in only 12 years. Tell Council to Send the 2024 Budget back for Serious Reductions.
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