Notes on the Special Council Meeting held December 13th, 2022 – Topic: The BUDGET
Meeting was held in person at Whiteside Taylor and was also offered by videoconference. These notes are an overview. The meeting and agenda, in its entirety, can be found on the Town website.
This meeting was called to deal specifically with the Town’s 2023 budget and Capital Expenditure Program. The actual documents are available on the Town’s website.
The total Town budget for 2023 is $26,361,020. Of this amount, Baie-D’Urfé must remit $16,216,000 (approximately 62 percent of the total) to the City of Montreal agglomeration as its “quote-part” for 2023. This assessment is based on the total of the property evaluations within the territory of the Town of Baie-D’Urfé. These evaluations were re-calculated by the City of Montreal’s property valuation department and the new evaluations are in effect for 2023, 2024 and 2025, resulting in an increase of 14 percent over 2022 ($2,007,000). Some of the accumulated surplus will be allocated to paying this assessment.
The local operating budget totals $9,466,000, an increase of 7.6 percent over 2022. Most of the increase in expenses is due to inflation; all services, contracts, etc. have increased in cost.
Due to the considerable increase in evaluations (averaging 40 percent) of most, if not all, of the properties within the Town of Baie-D’Urfé, some properties in the industrial sector were increased by 70 percent. The mil rate ($/$100 of the evaluation) was lowered from the 2022 rate to try and keep the tax increases within reasonable limits for most property owners. These rates will be adopted in the special council meeting of December 16th, 2023. Most of the residences will receive a 5-percent tax increase. The average tax increase in the industrial park is between 16 and 21 percent due to the large increase in the evaluations.
The mil rates will be set at: 0.4118 for residential properties; 2.2218 for non-residential properties, 0.8236 for vacant land.
The Capital Expenditure Program once again includes some major projects. For 2023, the reconstruction of Surrey and various adjacent streets east of Morgan including a pumping station to handle the surface water disposal is budgeted at $8,500,000; improvements at Berthold Park are budgeted for at $1,000,000 and a new, centralised septic system for the area comprising Whiteside Taylor, the Red Barn, the Curling club, the pool and the tennis club is budgeted at $1,200,000. The total projected capital expenditures for 2023 are $13,643,000 and include many smaller projects. Also, planning will be done for future projects such as the rehabilitation of Lakeshore east of Morgan, John Weir and Balsam Parks and 300 Surrey
The Mayor offered her thanks to Julie MacDowall, Nicolas Bouchard and the administration staff for their hard work in preparing this budget.
The budget for 2023 and the capital expenditures program for the years 2023-2024-2025 were adopted as presented
Question Period
- Lois Maeder, 63 Devon – Why is the Town Hall project not on the 2023 budget? The Mayor responded that the Town Hall project was awarded in 2022 and is therefore not part of the 2023 budget.
- Karin Gebert, 11 Lakeview –
- Could you explain the park improvements? Berthold Park plans are being finalised and will be published on the Town’s website as soon as completed. The splash pad is an on-going item and $550,000 has been included in the 2024 capital budget for now but that does not mean a splash pad will be installed that year.
- Of what is the rental of public buildings comprised? This includes rental income from the Potters’ Guild, the Whiteside-Taylor pre-school in the Red Barn, the CPE in the Whiteside-Taylor building.
- What is the Entente Centre-Ville? This is our share of a specific area in downtown Montreal that is considered an asset to all the surrounding municipalities as an income-attracting area (i.e. tourism).
- What is the “Fritz Farm remuneration”? This is actually the salary of our Recreation Technician which had to be plugged into the software program here.
- What is the repair and maintenance of the Fritz Grey house? It is a Town-owned property and must be maintained.
- What is the amount in “autres activités financières et affectations” and does it include the Town Hall project? That section of the budget represents old borrowing bylaws, a reserve for future elections, etc. The Town Hall project is not reflected in that line at all.
- What will the mil rate be? As mentioned previously.
- Talib Hussain, 90 Somerset – In view of the 40 percent increase in our evaluation and the 5 percent increase in the mil rate, what will the increase in our taxes be? The Mayor was not comfortable addressing a particular property in public, particularly as the owner was not present. The individual property is calculated by the evaluation multiplied by the mil rate.
The meeting was closed at 19h37.