Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Talkin' Taxes

At last night's council meeting we approved the budget for 2009 as well as what should be considered a draft budget for 2011. Of course there is always a lot of public comment & media coverage with municipal budgets and taxes in general. Usually the discussion rotates around how much the taxes are or how much they are going up rather than what they are paring for.

So I thought I'd try to find a little different way to show what your monthly taxes will be paying for in 2009.

The charts below are based on a house valued at $350,000. Using the city's online tax estimator tool we can find out that the approximate municipal tax bill will be $2271.04 per year, or $189.25 per month.

This first chart shows roughly how much of that $189.25 per month goes to different city departments.
All the numbers shown in the chart are in dollars. For example; of that $189.04 monthly tax bill, $61.43 goes to pay for the Protective Services department, $9.74 goes to Transit and $2.39 supports the activities and expenses of Council.


Protective Services Breakdown
This second chart breaks it down even further by looking at the $61.43 per month in the Protective Services Area. Of that total $31.69 per month goes towards paying for RCMP and $23.82 pays for the Fire Department.

So, someone living in a house valued at $350,000 is paying approximately:

• $32 per month for access to round the clock, 365 day a year RCMP service
• $24 per month for access to round the clock, 365 day a year professional Fire Fighting service

Ok, ok... I know it's likely that breaking it down this way isn't going to change how one feels about paying taxes. I do hope that it at least give a little perspective on the "value for dollar" that your local government is providing.

By an interesting coincidence, the chart that inspired me shows that residents in Guelph are paying a similar amount for fire protection.

4 comments:

Gary Taje said...

Hi Bill
What happened with your motion on the gallery? Good to see you have your budget behind you

The Retired Dude said...

I think council is doing the best they can with what little they have. Home taxation is not very easy, and often unfair, but it is the system we have so we have to live with it.

I am so glad the Aquatics Centre is finally getting off the ground after all these years. When I ran for council the leisure centre was talked about lots and that was over 4 years ago now.

Keep up the good work Bill.


Keep up the good work Bill.

gpconservative said...

Good stuff, but I'm confoosed.
This looks like you are only including the operating budget.What about capital?For instance for community services I get a total of 60 dollars, when u include capital.
Curses to those who don't show their work. (including me)
Am I right? I really should do more productive things over my lunch break.

gpconservative said...

Although Capital went down overall from 2008. So me thinks that is why you only incuded operating b/c your talking about the increase in taxes which obviously came from operating. Thinking out loud here. LOL

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