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| October 2011 |
Vol. 17, No. 1 |
OPEN LETTER
THE IMPORTANCE OF UPLOADING ON COMMUNITY WELL-BEING
At a recent Halton Health and Social Services Committee meeting (September
27, 2011), Mayor Rob Burton of Oakville brought attention to the issue of
uploading of provincial costs for social services and other services that may be
affected by the upcoming Ontario provincial election. Community Development
Halton shares these concerns, as we feel that provincial programs should be paid
for by a progressive income tax system instead being borne by the regressive
property tax base. We share with you an open letter prepared by Mayor Burton
that clarifies this issue. We urge all Halton residents to reflect on these
concerns.
Joey Edwardh
Ontario voters are faced with a very important issue in the Provincial
election being held on October 6th. Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak
has refused to commit to the 2008 agreement between the provincial government
and Ontario municipalities to upload (transfer back to the Province of Ontario)
social services and other costs, resulting in significant relief to property
taxes. Mr. Hudak told Mayors who complained that he would make changes to wage
arbitration rules for essential service providers that would be worth more.
When Halton Region financial staff did the math, they concluded that there
will be an almost $12 million hole in the Region of Halton’s 2012 Budget after
the provincial election, if the Progressive Conservatives win and continue to
refuse to commit to the 2008 agreement. Every program and service stands to
suffer.
Halton taxpayers benefit from uploading ten times as much as they could from
any altering of arbitration rules.
If uploading stops, we will have higher property taxes or serious program
cuts. It’s that simple.
By far the biggest component of the amounts that the current provincial
government will upload from Halton taxpayers, $11.7 million a year, is the
so-called “pooling” contribution from local taxpayers to the City of Toronto for
its social housing and welfare costs. Another $6.1 million a year is for the
costs of provincial welfare and court security costs, for a total of $17.8
million a year to be lifted from the burden on Halton property taxpayers. The
Oakville share is $7.5 million a year.
In Halton, payrolls that are subject to arbitration are: police, fire,
emergency and long term care. Oakville’s share of these payrolls totals $72
million. Bargaining has been coming in lately in a range under 3%. If
arbitration changes led to a 1% lower wage increase in all essential services
payrolls, Oakville’s share of that change would be worth only $720,000 to our
property taxpayers. The uploading of $7.5 million a year from Oakville taxpayers
is worth more than ten times this PC arbitration promise.
The Progressive Conservative Leader, Tim Hudak, should match the commitment
given by the Liberal, NDP and Green parties to continue the shift of Toronto
welfare and social housing costs and provincial welfare and court costs from
local property taxpayers to the Province.
Duncan Foot, president of the Halton Region Police Association, said his
members would hate to see local taxpayers caught between a decision to cut
essential service workers or raise taxes unacceptably high. “Attacking the pay
of essential employees such as police, fire, emergency and long term care
workers who have no right to strike is unfair and short-sighted.”
Carmen Santoro, president of the Oakville Professional Fire Fighters
Association, said that the arbitration rules already require arbitrators to
consider the ability of the municipality to pay salary increases: “The current
system, ironically brought in under the Harris government, contains criteria for
the arbitrators whereby they must consider the local municipalities ability to
pay,” Santoro pointed out.
The PCs, who say they need to find ways of paying for their platform
promises, have already proposed a new downloading of costs to municipal property
taxes, this time for the cost of hazardous waste disposal, which means a
property tax increase of almost $300 million for Ontarians.
Provincial uploading puts those costs more on provincial income taxes, which
are shared among many people and businesses and not paid by many seniors and
others on low or fixed incomes.
These PC proposals will hurt people who can least afford it.
The timetable that the Province of Ontario and Association of Municipalities
of Ontario agreed to for uploading has given us a stable, long-term basis out to
2018 for municipal finances as we deal with controlling the costs of growth. The
uploading agreement put us on a sound, business-like foundation.
It’s amazing that PC leader Tim Hudak thinks that it’s okay to rip up an
agreement with municipalities. Governing is about reliable partnership
agreements and fairness for property taxpayers.
Sincerely,
Mayor Rob Burton, BA, MS
Head of Council & CEO
PDF (Community Dispatch)
Produced by Community Development Halton
860 Harrington Court
Burlington, Ontario L7N 3N4
(905) 632-1975, (905) 878-0955; Fax: (905) 632-0778; E-mail:
office@cdhalton.ca
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