I had the chance to talk to Finance Minister Colin Hansen last Friday on a sad affair that brought hundreds of us together to remember an amazing friend who passed on far too early. I of course asked him about the shoes he was planning on wearing for today’s budget, to which he calmly pointed down to the unassuming if unspectacular pair he had on, telling me that they were the oldest and most comfortable dress shoes he owned. Imagine something similar to this:
A mock-up of the Finance Minister’s budget shoes, which reportedly keeps one of his ailing toes “comfortable”
but a little more rounded, and a lot less shiny and new looking.
With regards to the budget that Mr. Hansen is set to deliver this afternoon, characteristics such as unassuming, unspectacular and comfortable would all be a welcome outcome one would assume, particularly for municipalities that hang in the balance over the $1.9 billion in cuts to “discretionary spending” that Hansen and his officials have been planning since February.
There is a commonly held misconception regarding the amount of direct funding that municipalities receive from the provincial government. The fact is that the vast majority of municipal budgeting is derived from local property taxes, levied on residential, commercial and industrial properties.
Where municipalities can get dinged the most is in already existing joint funding arrangements for priorities such as housing and transportation. In the case of Vancouver, here are some things that I am going to be looking for this afternoon:
• Will the BC Housing annual allotment be slashed? And how will that impact the 14 supportive housing developments being built under a partnership between the Province and the City of Vancouver?
• Will Translink’s budget be cut as part of the Premier’s advice to the organization to cut costs? And, what becomes of the request for $450 million in additional annual funding that Translink says it needs to maintain and increase transit services over the next decade? Translink is already pushing their Transport 2040 proposal that relies on municipal funding levers like “land lift” (when a property is upzoned for development), which in effect is simply another form of downloading costs to the municipalities.
• With the August 20, 2009 announcement that provincial funding to support public libraries would be $13,700,000, representing a 22 per cent drop from last year, what other municipal services that rely on provincial funding will face cutbacks?
Check back in the hours after the budget speech for a CivicScene analysis.
