North Perth residents might pay more in property tax through a proposed budget amendment.
North Perth Mayor Todd Kasenberg said the amendment comes because projections for the OPP and the Maitland Valley Conservation Area, when they first passed the budget in December, were invalid.
The municipality said Kasenberg initiated this amendment under Strong Mayor Powers.
“We’ve been given more accurate information from OPP and the Maitland Valley Conservation Authority about what the actual costs are, and cumulatively between those two sources represented an increase of about $120,000 or so,” said Kasenberg.
Kasenberg started this change after receiving endorsement from council at the March 23 meeting.
Property taxes would increase from 6.61 percent to 7.15 percent.
“As a consequence, because that money wasn’t budgeted for, we had to find it somewhere and this somewhere normally is to create an amendment and increase local taxpayer’s bills.”
According to Kasenberg, the costs for the MVCA would go from $494,500 to $544,046, while OPP gets an extra $68,469.
Officials added that the amendment includes three capital projects, which will be funded by reserves, and the removal of the Perth Meadows operating budget after being transferred to United Housing in December.
On their website, the Ontario Government said this framework means the head of council can propose certain municipal by-laws if they believe the proposed by-law could potentially advance a provincial priority in this regulation.
Kasenberg added with this framework, the government introduced a mandate where the mayor is responsible for bringing the budget forward as well as amendments to it.
For next steps, the amendment can be evaluated by council, and they will decide whether to support it or not.
Kasenberg said council can further make amendments to the process within the next 20 days.
“If amendments don’t satisfy me as mayor, I can use my Strong Mayor Power to veto the amendments, and council then has the opportunity to override my veto with a super-majority vote required,” said Kasenberg.
The process lasts four to six weeks.
