I'm a little surprised the Liberals gave nothing. Maybe it was the Ticat funding or the fact the city was on track for really low increase compared to other municipalities. Or the province is completely broke.
Province leaves city with $5.1m budget gap
http://www.thespec.com/news/local/ar...-1m-budget-gap
The city will not receive any funding from the province to offset the cost of ambulances and social services.
“I would love to be able to provide Hamilton with every single request, but unfortunately, this time around we couldn’t provide it in the budget,” said Sophia Aggelonitis, revenue minister and MPP for Hamilton Mountain.
The city had requested $4 million from the province to help ease the cost of providing provincially mandated social services. The city also requested $1.1 million to cover the increased ambulance costs it will face once the McMaster emergency room closes to adults April 4.
Both requests were denied.
The province’s move means the city’s property tax increase – currently sitting at 1 per cent – could be hiked to make up for the missing cash. Since each percentage point of the residential tax increase represents about $6 million, this $5.1 gap adds almost a full percentage point to this year’s hike.
“It’s hard to comprehend. We’ve made so much progress on the budget – this year more than other years – and maybe that’s contributing to why we didn’t get any money,” said Councillor Chad Collins. “It almost unravels about a month’s worth of work in terms of trying to find efficiencies in the budget.”
It’s also being seen as a risky political move for the provincial Liberals in an election year.
“I’m shocked that the local MPPs aren’t screaming and vocalizing this travesty on behalf of the residents of the city of Hamilton,” said Councillor Sam Merulla. “They must have given up on the election. They obviously feel that these seats are not important to them – they’ve literally abandoned the city of Hamilton.”
City officials were reluctant to comment about the news and what it will mean for this year’s tax increase, saying they hadn’t received official word from the province.
“I don’t want to go there,” said Rob Rossini, the city’s general manager of finance. “I’m not making any comment until the mayor gets the formal notice from the province.”
Aggelonitis said Mayor Bob Bratina, who attended the budget announcement at Queen’s Park on Tuesday, was officially informed of the decision that same day.
However, councillors have yet to receive a formal update from city staff or the mayor’s office and weren’t aware of the news.
Bratina did not return The Spectator’s request for an interview, but in an email, he said there’s still room for the province to come through with the money.
“Our dialogue with the province regarding Hamilton’s needs has not concluded,” it read. “However, to date we have received sufficient funds to help us achieve a 1 per cent tax increase, and that could possibly be further lowered by our budget day.”
Bratina is referring to an $8.1-million grant the city received last week from the Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund. Though there was some confusion about whether that grant was the special social services grant, city staff clarified that the $8.1 million is a refund for social services costs that date back to 2009.
The city requested the $4-million social services grant because it faces higher social service costs than other cities. It will still be several years before Hamilton’s social services are completely uploaded to the province.
Since 2003, the province has provided the city with more than $120 million to offset social service costs and to help reduce the tax increase to ratepayers.
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