Tax Rate, Five-Year-Plan Set in Pair of Special Meetings
- kc dyer
- May 15
- 2 min read
Late budget adoption pushes Council up against May 15 deadline
In a high-speed pair of meetings Tuesday and Wednesday night, Council approved the 2025 tax rate bylaw and five-year plan.
Tuesday's meeting, which was held without the customary written 24-hour notice, began at 6 p.m. This meant that two councillors and the CAO attended online, with Blackwell and Councillor Neville Abbott each calling in from their respective cars, and Councillor Jaime Cunliffe also attending via Zoom.
The meeting, lasting less than 10 minutes, saw a motion to give first, second and third readings to the five-year plan encompassing 2025-2029. This was followed by three swift readings of this year's tax rate bylaw.
The tax rate and five-year plan were the only items on the agendas of both meetings.
The Tuesday meeting closed in under ten minutes, with a reminder from Chief Administrative Officer Ross Blackwell that the "final reading will be tomorrow evening at the same time, in the same order."
And in fact, that is exactly what happened on Wednesday night, when the two bylaws both received final approval.
After the first meeting, Blackwell said that the reason for the back-to-back meetings this week "is to meet the statutory deadline for the adoption of the five-year financial plan by May 15."
He noted that since the budget was not approved by Council until last week, this pushed the process right up to the provincially-set deadline.
Blackwell expressed hope that Council will be in a position to approve the budget for 2026 in December this year or early 2026 at the latest. That way, he said, "we are easily able to meet the statutory deadlines, and it will allow staff to undertake operational planning at the beginning of the year versus approximately half way through."
No mention was made of the upcoming by-election to fill the open seat vacated by former Council member Marcus Reuter, and set for June 21. The nomination window closes this Friday, May 16.
The Watershed values your opinion.
Share your thoughts below, or email editor@lionsbaywatershed.ca
Like what you're reading?
For as little as $5/month, you can support local independent journalism
by subscribing to The Watershed HERE.
Good article, however it gives the impression that councillors were just stalling the process, when in fact there was a 140,000 item with little to no explaination and an item councillors were unwilling to give the go ahead on. They wanted answers and not to simply have a number remain on the books that was not approved. 😡
They were doing their jobs.
The budget was not approved earlier in part because staff did not remove $140,000 for a specific item two councillors did not support. Instead they chose to bring the same budget back twice contrary to the vote. This was part of the delay. The municipal budget cycle usually takes place early in the new year once year-end is complete (usually by the end of January) and actuals are available. Unfortunately, this part of the work now takes several months to complete. Further, in the new budget format, important information like staff costs has been divvied up into many line-items making it nigh on impossible to find answers to important questions without staff going away and coming back with requested answers.…