City budget talks begin with 2.76 per cent proposed tax increase

“What that has allowed us to do is present to you, at this time of year, a pretty concise budget. Some of you who have been on council for a while… may remember a lot of times we would come in at this time of year, it would be a six or seven or eight per cent [tax increase] and we’d whittle it down from there. This is pretty tight with the new process they have.”

Mayor Ken Christian told council to consider Trawin’s comment a “shot across the bow” that it’s not likely the increase can be shaved much lower in future budget discussions for the year ahead.

Humphrey said, in addition to increases in contract costs and inflation, the propsed tax increase is required to help fund more police officers at the Kamloops RCMP detachment.

In 2015, council agreed to phase-in funding for its allotted RCMP officer complement of 136. The plan in 2020 is to bring funding up to 133, meaning an additional $295,000, with a jump to 136 next year.

Before agreeing to up its funding for RCMP officers, the city’s funding reflected a situation that saw several of the allotted positions left vacant due to leaves and other circumstances.

Council discussion focused on the tasks frontline officers are encountering over the course of their day-to-day work.

“There are responsibilities of other agencies. In particular, the mental health crisis that is playing out on our streets is properly the responsibility of the health authority. Issues related to detoxification, issues related to housing, issues related to recreational programming and places to go, are not necessarily in the purview of local government,” said Christian.

“I think we have to be careful about that downloading of responsibilities from the provincial government.”

Christian says he routinely speaks to the provincial government about downloading of costs and encourages lobbying groups such as the Union of B.C. Municipalities to continue their efforts on that issue.

Council discussion also noted that the local detachment and the neighbouring Kamloops Rural (Tk’emlups) detachment are often tasked with responding to calls that don’t directly relate to their funding jurisdiction.

Christian says the issue is unfortunately not uncommon.

“Pentiction is dealing with Okanagan Falls and Oliver, West Kelowna is dealing with Peachland, Kelowna is dealing with Lake Country… it just goes on up and down the system,” said Christian. “The common thread there is that there is really poor record-keeping as to how much municipal policing is actually going on in the municipalities that are paying for the policing. That, I think, is patently unfair.”

Humphrey noted Kamloops being a central hub for many smaller outlying communities also puts an outsized responsibility on our taxpayers to provide services.

She notes a community like Kelowna, as an example, could theoretically split the provision of recreation options with nearby West Kelowna.

‘Some of the services that we do, there just really isn’t an alternative,” said Humphrey. “But I think over the past three or four years, we’ve done a really good job of holding those increasing costs and truly finding new and innovative ways to do a lot of the day-to-day services.”

Kamloops residents will have a chance to get a more detailed look at the initial proposed budget at a public meeting Wednesday evening (Nov. 27), 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the McArthur Island Sports Centre Lounge.

by James Peters

City budget talks begin with 2.76 per cent proposed tax increase

Our Community