In a recent Abbotsford News story, it was reported it is going to cost you the taxpayer a lot of money to get more water. If you aren’t troubled by this you should be troubled by how the city will get these funds.

We’ve seen them try to charge for parking at Mill Lake; we’ve seem them float a gas tax – and those are their good ideas. During budget presentations earlier this year, it was suggested that revenue could be increased by raising fees for dog licenses. Surely, with a budget that didn’t have one meaningful cut in it, we can be more creative than this.

The City of Abbotsford can’t continue to claim that they are looking at all possibilities.

During the budget presentation this year, the city finance department drew up a chart of local municipal tax rates. It placed Richmond at the top of that list and it put Abbotsford about halfway down. This chart was important because city council used it to justify increases by telling us that we are “average” compared to other cities.

However, the numbers don’t support that chart.

Richmond’s General Municipal Tax Rate is just over $4.5 per $1,000 of assessed value. Abbotsford’s rate is more than $7.5 per $1,000 of assessed value.

The City of Richmond has about 180,000 people living in it, so they have 30 per cent more people to serve and a correspondingly larger tax base. In Richmond, their annual budget is about $300 million. Abbotsford’s 2009 budget is $280 million.

In other words, Richmond has lower tax rates, a lower per capita budget, and they serve 30 per cent more people than the City of Abbotsford.

Abbotsford can do better! However, there will be no change if we continue to do things exactly the same year after year.

Vince Dimanno

Abbotsford Ratepayers Association