How deep would Ida Chongs cuts to the City of Victoria be? I carried out a quick analysis of Ida Chongs no-tax increase proposal using the Citys 2014-2018 Revenue and Expenditure Estimates. Assumptions are that other taxes/fee collection services only increase at present rates and that the primary drivers of projected expenditure increases are inflationary costs rather than representing new services and programs. Therefore any tax increases avoided requires making proportionally large cuts to existing services. I would stress that this is a driving assumption of any analysis like this. *Year - $ million in cuts (cuts as % of projected expenditure)* 2015 $4.27 million (2%) 2016 $5.45 million (2.5%) 2017 $5.66 million (2.5%) 2018 $5.21 million (2.2%) Variance between City projections vs. Ida Chong cuts : $20.6 million (9.2%) Total forgone revenues 2015-2018: $49.97 million How much services would need to be cut to succeed in freezing tax increases at 0%/year? Approximately, 9.2% of revenues required to match the estimated annual expenditures that the City thinks that it be spending under business-as-usual in 2018 under current projections would no longer be available. So essentially, 9.2% of what the City currently does, it would need to stop doing over the course of Idas term. I know its really hard for most people to visualize millions of dollars and what you get for that amount of money. For context, lets look at what we spend money on today - even if the entire Communications and Civic Engagement budget for the city was completely cut (which is a terrible idea) - it only makes up 0.39% of total expenditures - not even in the millions. To compare what that kind of money gets you, I would look at Parks, Recreation and Cultures budget which is about 8% of total city expenditures but brings in about 1.3% in cost-recovery... so actually more like 6.7%... so essentially... if you cut the *entire* Parks, Recreation and Culture budget, you would only be 2/3rds of the way to Idas target. Obviously, were Ida elected shes not going to cut entire departments - cuts of this kind tend to be relatively spread out over many areas to not arouse as much public opposition, but it is easier to visualize the scale of the proposal to put it in concrete terms. She would also likely need to try to bring in revenue in other ways - shifting expenditures into debt is one approach, but realistically, this would most likely mean charging higher fees - parking, licensing, permitting, etc. Summary: no-tax increases is a promise with big consequences for the quality of services in the City of Victoria. If Ida is going to propose it, she better start saying exactly what services she plans cutting to pay for this promise.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 23:00:18 +0000
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