Tax hike reduced to 3.86%

Photo: Castanet

Kelowna city council whittled more than half a percentage point off the 2017 budget.

The provisional 2017 budget, which began with a 4.4 per cent hike, has been trimmed to a 3.86 per cent increase.

Requests for extra police officers and firefighters along with a portion of Rutland Centennial Park upgrades were chopped from the budget to get the tax increase below the four per cent number.

Near the end of Thursday's day-long deliberations, debate centred around two additional police officers and renovations to city hall.

Mayor Colin Basran said he doesn't buy the argument the city looked after itself at the expense of police and fire services.

Basran said the city has approved about two dozen police officers over the past number of years, and pointed to the fact the six approved last year are not here yet.

"Let's just hit the pause button, get the new (RCMP) building open and pay for the contract increases. But, we still made a significant increase in protective services," said Basran.

"And, I would say the same thing about the fire department. We still approved their other requests and made investments in protective services."

What council didn't approve was a request for renovations to the Glenmore firehall to accommodate full-time staff, and 12 members to staff the hall.

That request, totalling more than $460,000, will be added to next year's budget.

The city also said no to a $350,000 budget item for a portion of the more than $3 million upgrade to Centennial Park.

Several councillors during the day talked about how tough this budget was to preside over.

"Probably given the demand for increased services we are getting from our residents," said Basran. "We can't say yes to all the requests. And, what was also hard for us was the increase, at 4.4, was a lot larger than we've seen over the last two years.

"This is about trying to build a great city. It's not personal."

The city faces more of the same over the next two years.

Including projects already approved for the coming years, and a positive vote on the fire department's request, council will be looking at starting the budget cycles with projected increases of 2.76 per cent in 2018 and 2.47 per cent in 2019. That's without inflation or service improvements being factored in.