Budgets are never easy - just ask the government leaders on the Sunshine Coast.
For the past month and a half, directors and staff at the Sunshine Coast Regional District have been locked in an exhaustive struggle with their 2009 budget. They cut here, cut there and came up with a number - an average tax increase of between 12 and 13 per cent. Depending on where you live on the Coast, that means an increase of between $40 and $117 of the SCRD portion on your residential tax bill. During this number crunching, many residents in the community were outraged that service levels would be cut to accommodate the budget numbers. Those residents engaged in the discussion process and actively championed for things like added ice times in Gibsons, a return to hours at the Gibsons pool and a restructuring of HandiDart, so that service, so vital to so many in the community, would not be cut completely.SCRD staff and directors listened and reacted and came up with, under the circumstances of economic uncertainty, a pretty good budget. It's not perfect and some may question why there is a tax increase in the first place, but give the directors credit for listening to the community and addressing the issues. It's a far cry from what budget discussions have seen in the past - almost zero public participation.
But not all governments are satisfied with this budget. At its council meeting of March 18, District of Sechelt council voted unanimously to not approve the SCRD budget, instructing board representative Mayor Darren Inkster to take that message back to the SCRD. Councillors were upset that District of Sechelt residents were going to be faced with a $117 increase - the second highest on the Coast. All right, council has a right to be upset, but where was council while discussion was going on at the SCRD? Were they not privy to the discussions? Did they not see the challenges the SCRD faced? It's too bad this negative vote is coming at such a late hour, because there really isn't too much the SCRD can do about it now. What can they do? Scrap the whole thing and start from scratch? That's not going to happen.
Hopefully Sechelt council will take the negative energy they are feeling, put it to good use in a positive way and come up with a budget for their residents that has a minimal tax increase and help ease the tax burden for their residents.
