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The Town of Rosemere plans to bill residential and commercial property owners 2.4 per cent more for taxes this year, while reducing the residential tax rate nearly four cents per $100 valuation, and attempting to spread out the impact of a 27 per cent increase in property values that has just come into effect.
An Election year budget
Tabling her final annual budget before next fall’s municipal election, Mayor Hélène Daneault told residents during a special meeting last month at town hall that the 2009 budget forecast would be marked by the same “stringency, transparency and vision” that characterized all her administration’s budgets since she first came to office in 2005.
“The average 2009 tax bill will be only slightly higher, despite a major fluctuation in the new real estate assessment roll,” said Daneault. The tax rate for commercial properties is dropping from $2.30 to $2.12 per $100 of valuation. “We had anticipated a 4.75 per cent commercial tax increase in 2009,” she said.
Merchants spared tax hike
“However, in light of the financial and economic situation, which arose so quickly, we opted for a more modest increase … Our merchants foster prosperity and create jobs … We feel it is essential for us to express our support to them by reducing by 50 per cent the tax hike that had initially been planned.”
Two new dimensions to Rosemere’s previous budgets have been added in 2009, she added. “The first is one that certainly raises some concerns. I refer, obviously, to the worldwide financial crisis, which has translated into an economic slowdown that, according to experts, could well become a recession as early as this coming spring.”
$23,193,000 total budget
Daneault said the second element that had to be taken into account in preparing the budget was the new triennial real estate roll, which came into effect on Jan. 1. “It goes without saying that the updating of Rosemere’s real estate assessments made holding the tax bill to reasonable level a challenge,” said the mayor.
The 2009 operating budget will be $23,193,000 before capital reimbursement, expenditures and allocations. Since the amount includes $288,900 in special works projects, the actual operating budget is $22,905,000, or 3.57 per cent more than last year. The mayor emphasized this is in keeping with her administration’s five-year financial plan.
Impact of real estate roll
“The positive repercussions of our five-year plan can also be seen in a most practical manner, in our commitment to reduce the impact of the new real estate assessment role on taxpayers … Aware of the importance of the increase in the triennial roll, our administration will once again spread differences in real estate evaluations over a three-year period, as permitted by the Act respecting municipal taxation.
“Thus, the value used to establish municipal taxes for 2009 will be determined according to the real estate value of the unit prior to the tabling of the new roll, to which a third of the variation of the newly tabled value will be added or subtracted, depending on whether the latter has increased or dropped.” In 2010, according to Daneault, two thirds of the variation will then be added or subtracted, depending on the case, and in 2011 (the last year of the triennial roll) the total variation will be applied.
Costs are rising
The tax on the supply of drinking water will remain unchanged at $125 per residence. However, the charge for garbage pick-up service is going up $14 per residence and $21 for businesses, as a result of higher costs for landfill sites.
As Rosemere is hosting part of the Jeux du Québec in the early spring and elections have to be organized for November, expenses for these and other administrative needs are rising 5.78 per cent. The cost of public security is rising more than 6 per cent because of an increase in Rosemere’s contribution to the intermunicipal police force. The town has allocated nearly $2.38 million for the addition of a third UV disinfection unit at the water filtration plant.
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