Major tax hikes loom in Montreal suburbs
Island municipalities fear city is trying to off-load costs on them
By David Johnston, The Gazette,December 19, 2009
MONTREAL – Property taxes are poised to increase significantly in Montreal Island suburbs next year thanks to higher levies from the city of Montreal for shared services.
The Tremblay administration sent out the levy notices to the 15 suburbs late Friday afternoon, that being the preferred time in politics to deliver bad news.
While the official figures are confidential for the time being, sources say the suburbs are looking at increases in their agglomeration bills, or shared-services bills, in the order the order of 10 to 12 per cent.
Since agglomeration expenses account for roughly half of a suburb’s overall budget – local expenses being the other half – this works out to five to six per cent. For suburbs which intend to limit their own local spending to inflation, now about two per cent, this means increases in overall property taxes of six to seven per cent in 2010.
This is more than three times the inflation rate.
“It’s outrageous,” said Baie d’Urfé Mayor Maria Tutino.
Whether or not property taxes in the city of Montreal rise by the same six to seven per cent remains to be seen.
Suburban mayors will be looking to see if the city of Montreal has played with the budget numbers to make suburbs shoulder an unfairly high share of the overall cost of shared services.
In the past, suburbs have complained to the provincial government about the way Montreal has done its budget planning for the agglomeration council. Quebec has upheld some of their complaints, and blocked certain practices. But suburbs say Montreal has found new ways to off-load costs on them.
Westmount Mayor Peter Trent said Friday night that he wants to wait until Monday before revealing what the levy notice he received Friday afternoon says.
“I expect, though, that the increase will work out to be around 12 per cent,” Trent said.
Underpinning the increases, Trent said, are continuing financial problems at the Société de transport de Montréal, the transit commission. Fare increases announced Friday of 2.2 per cent for 2010 will not, according to projections, raise enough money to balance the STM budget. As a result, municipalities are being asked to up their own subsidies to the STM out of property taxes.
Another problem, Tutino said, is that stock-market losses in 2009 resulted in pension-fund deficits for which cities will have to make special compensation payments in 2010. Pension plans for police officers and bus drivers and the like will require more taxpayer support.
Tutino also said she wants to wait until Monday to comment on the levy she received, but she hinted that Baie d’Urfé is looking at the same 12-per-cent hike as that facing Westmount.
Tutino said one other mayor she spoke with late Friday afternoon said he had received a notice telling him his town will be asked to pay 10 per cent more next year in agglomeration expenses.
Anthony Housefather, mayor of Côte St. Luc, said he didn’t want to say what kind of an increase he received.
“Suffice it to say that this type of increase would be unacceptable.”
Housefather used the conditional tense in talking about the increase because nothing is cast in stone yet. Budgets haven’t been tabled yet, let alone passed, and the mayors intend to fight back next week. But whether they will be successful in getting the increases in the levies scaled back is far from certain.
Unlike the former Montreal Urban Community government before forced mergers, the Montreal political agglomeration isn’t a separate legal entity from the city of Montreal. It is an operating division of the city of Montreal, and so Montreal controls it fully, from a planning and a voting point of view.
Darren Becker, a spokesperson for the city of Montreal’s executive committee, said the suburbs had been given a warning by the city two months ago that a big tax hike for agglomeration expenses was coming. He said they shouldn’t act as if the city is trying to pull the wool over their eyes.
Normally, municipal budgets are tabled and passed in December, but delays related to uncertainty over the agglomeration budget has resulted in Montreal and the suburbs postponing the tabling of their 2010 budgets until next month.
On the South Shore, Longueuil says its own property taxes might have to rise by an average 12 per cent next year to deal with its own problems.
It’s smooth sailing in Laval, however, where a budget was unveiled last Monday calling for average 1.7-per-cent increase – just under inflation.
djohnston@thegazette.canwest.com
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