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Second budget open house draws crowd

As RMOW moves through budgetary process, staff moves to trim another $1.4 million from shortfall
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Record numbers of curious, concerned Whistler residents filled Spruce Grove Field House Monday evening for the Resort Municipality of Whistler's second 2011 budget and five-year-plan public open house.

To date, staff has been asked to examine ways to reduce a $2.8 million shortfall without raising property taxes beyond the four per cent forecasted. That increase is necessary to address general fund costs in 2011, which include a contractual labour cost increase of $800,000 for all municipal staff.

The open house revealed that after three rounds of cuts the deficit has been reduced to half of its original size. The most recent cuts reduced contingency budgets by $126,000, trimmed park and village maintenance costs by $30,000, and saw $50,0000 worth of RMOW administration positions eliminated. Refinement of transit property administration costs and recalculation of the Squamish-Whistler Commuter figures saved another $200,000. And by delaying the repayment of capital related to the debris barrier and parking lots the municipality will save another $983,000.

"We've heard loud and clear from the community that they want the RMOW to find efficiencies and cut costs. It's a given. We knew that going in, before any survey, which is why we set to work immediately cutting costs, before the survey even started," said RMOW's general manager of economic viability, Lisa Landry.

"That's why we cut $674,000 in costs right out of the gate, and we continue on. Since then we've identified another $412,000 in cost cutting which will not impact taxes or service levels and deferred a further $938,000 in costs."

Now looking at a $1.4 million shortfall, staff is going to have to get creative to maintain services going into its fourth round of cuts. Landry said the RMOW is fast approaching the inevitable point at which it will become financially impossible to further reduce the shortfall without impacting service levels or raising taxes.

To identify which is preferable to the public - service reductions or tax increases - the municipality asked residents to indicate their druthers in a randomly selected, computer-assisted telephone survey of 500 residents and second homeowners, on display at the open house. Three-hundred permanent residents and 200 second homeowners were surveyed between Nov. 18 and 30. Results show that 57 per cent of locals accept some property tax increases. That's compared to 64 per cent of second homeowners who said they would be OK with further hikes.

Sixty-one per cent of residents indicated they were very satisfied with Whistler as a place to live, and 28 per cent said they were somewhat satisfied, creating an overall satisfaction rate of 89 per cent, down from 90 per cent in 2009.

For second homeowners the satisfaction rates were higher, with 72 per cent indicating they were very satisfied with Whistler and 25 per cent somewhat satisfied.

Local realtor Heather Clifford, who was on hand at the open house and spoke on behalf of the newly formed Coalition for Concerned Citizens for Whistler, said the survey results inaccurately represented the local demographic.

"Two-hundred of the people were second home owners and I think our tax base is 70 per cent second home owners, so it was extremely skewed for the people who are really paying the bills," she said.

The survey results further indicated that satisfaction with municipal service - things like maintenance of community parks and trails, village upkeep, snow clearing, transit, water utilities, recreational programs and facilities and library services - were generally good. Residents gave snow removal a 94 per cent approval rate, fire inspection and rescue service got a 90 per cent approval rate and village maintenance landed at 95 per cent.

Locals gave the Whistler Public Library (WPL) an 87 per cent satisfaction rate, down from the previous year. WPL announced a reduction in library hours this week to deal with their department's budgetary challenges -  the result of having a freeze on non-labour costs for two years running. WPL president Alix Nicoll was on hand at the open house and expressed frustration over the cuts.

"I think that the municipal salaries should be frozen and I don't think they understand that that is where people are getting really upset," she said. "Four per cent, four per cent, four per cent, four per cent - I'm sorry, the rest of us are all taking big hits. It's about time they froze their salaries like all the other municipalities are doing. Even the American government is doing. They don't pay CUPE, they aren't a union... where is this binding contract?"

RMOW officials maintain the contract they have with staff is as binding as a union contract and has been negotiated to increase wages by four per cent in 2011. The 2009 wage bill for RMOW was $20,461,832, which means a four per cent raise for staff, including mayor and council, will cost $818,473.282. Preliminary results of the online survey indicate the public wants the RMOW to consider cutting salaries and staff positions but numerous queries to RMOW staff have been responded to by saying a freeze in 2011 is not going to happen.

"The community is pretty up in arms at the number of people working under the roof at the RMOW, salaries - none of us have had a pay raise, in fact I've had a pay dock," continued Clifford.

"We all are doing little things to tighten up... so everybody is tightening their belts and it's a tough position for them to be in but they've got to be able to do the hard job in order to keep us happy as the taxpayers."

To help the RMOW be more competitive when bidding on contracts and more organized when the building season begins, staff has organized the capital budget to be brought forward by January. Municipal infrastructure costs are funded by reserves, so capital costs will have no impact on the budget's operational shortfall.

Mayor and council will review the budget guidelines and a summary of the budget's progress at a regular council meeting on Dec. 21.

 

 

Tax increase sparks coalition

 

Reaction to proposed tax hikes has caused a stirring among local residents, resulting in the formulation of a group called the Coalition of Concerned Citizens for Whistler (CCCW).

Unofficial spokesperson for the CCCW, Heather Clifford, said the group was responsible for the extremely high turn out at the second budget open house. More than 160 people showed up at Monday's open house, eclipsing former numbers that hover between zero and 35.

The CCCW is requesting the RMOW hold a town-hall style meeting that will allow citizens to direct questions a staff and council in early January.

"What we want to do is give a number of questions that have never been answered to council and staff, as well as solutions to some of the problems and ideas we see with the budget and give that to them a few weeks in advance," Clifford said.

"Then we'd like to host a meeting where we can start talking as a community. I'm not OK with any tax increases, period, until I can see what they've done to reduce the deficit. Then I can say 'OK, we're all going to carry a little bit of weight because of this.'

"But I can tell you 90 per cent of the citizens aren't pleased with the budget and that was obvious because the people that came last night weren't all saying 'good job'."

More information on the CCCW can be found on the Linked In site under Whistler Business.