It's barely the end of 2013, and Burnaby city council is already projecting a 2.47 per cent property tax increase next year.
At its Dec. 9 meeting, council received a report of the 2014 provisional financial plan projecting an increase to property taxes, which could lead to a freezing of hiring any more full-time city employees.
"The report before us is a pretty tight budget," said Coun. Dan Johnston. "I think staff have been quite thorough in reviewing their programs and making adjustments as needed. Saying that, I think there's still some potential between now and the annual budget in May to realize some additional opportunities."
The interim report included a $5.5 million amortization of costs for some of the newly completed community centres, such as the Edmonds Community Centre, the Still Creek Eco Centre and the Bonsor 55 plus centre, according to Johnston.
Johnston suggested a temporary halt to hiring new city staffers. He also noted a potential $60,000 increase to the Still Creek Recycling and Green Waste Depot budget because the city will no longer receive a Harmonized Sales Tax credit.
Coun. Pietro Calendino said while the suggested increase is an "acceptable number during good times," it will be difficult for those on a fixed income.
"In this time, (we should) look at reducing the property tax further," he said. "It's not just property taxes that people are faced with. They're faced with sewage, water, they're faced with garbage collection, faced with transit, faced with school board; they're faced with a whole bunch of other taxes. When you put them all together, the final bill is felt especially for people on a fixed income, and those are the ones we usually hear from."
According to Mayor Derek Corrigan, the proposed property tax increase started out as a higher number, about 2.99 per cent.
"It started out much higher, given the additional resources that we've brought in to the city," he said. "We know that we opened the Edmonds Community Centre this year, and we certainly have had demands on our system as a result of the growth in our city, and our planning department and engineering department have been working very hard."
Corrigan said the city's resources are under pressure.
"We're trying to make as little impact as we can (on the local taxpayer), but I don't want to do that at the expense of taking away public services in important areas like fire protection, police, ... parks and rec."
The 2014 provisional financial plan focuses on community safety, security, maintaining and improving city infrastructure and new services, according to finance director Denise Jorgenson in her report to council.
The projected increase is required to fund collective agreement increases, operational and inflationary increases, and new services.
