PLT meeting in Thunder Bay
synopsis by Fred Mueller
Aug 18, 2008 10:00 – 12:00
When I arrived, there was a line past the front desk of people trying to get
in to the meeting. No one seemed to know if the room was full or why there
was a line-up. Turned out that everyone was signing in. As a result, the
meeting didn't get underway until around 10:20. Both of our local MPP's were
there (Bill Mauro & MNDM Minister Michael Gravelle) and they each spent a
few minutes talking. Michael Gravelle spoke of how the important issue was
'fairness' and Bill Mauro emphasized that the PLT reform was due to AMO
complaints (Assoc. of Municip. of Ont.) and the provincial government had
little to do with it. [Do you notice I'm NOT inserting editorial comment?]
Bill Mauro emphasized how he's been explaining to the Min. of Finance that
we already pay for roads, education, etc., in the unincorporated areas and
that many of these residences are seasonal.
Then Helen Harper from MOF took over and explained that the order of the
meeting would be 5 min. for opening remarks; 15 min. for her explanation of
the PLT so far; and 100 min. for questions from the floor. She was the lead
speaker for the rest of the session, with the occasional comment from the
MPP's. She then went through some hand-outs; most of which we've seen
before. She kept emphasizing that it was revenue-neutral; that half of the
people will see a tax reduction, etc. Essentially what the letter from the
Minister of Finance said. There will be four tax classes (residential &
multi-residential will be treated the same, max. rate will be $230 or $40
per $100,000 property); farm & forest lands will be at 25% of the
residential rate; commercial rate will be no higher than $120 per $100,000
and industrial will be no more than $60 per $100K.
She said the MOF was promising that if total assessments came in at less
than they expected, those rates would still represent a maximum. The rates
might be lower if the total assessments are more than expected..
At this point there were lots of questions; and the rest of the meeting was
more or less spent answering them. Some were from the floor verbally, some
were written down on forms they had available. I'll try to summarize what
stuck in my head; if I miss something important, maybe the others will jump
in. There were lots of questions regarding assessments; some she answered;
some she said to contact MPAC for the answers.
She said MPAC said they visited every uninc. property between 2005 and 2007.
She said there have been changes made to the MPAC appeals process to make it
more user friendly. Assessments are based on market value and not
replacement value. The cost to the MOF of the MPAC assessments wasn't known
but was less than one year's income. Later she said that the total PLT
revenues are around $10.5 million.
There were several questions about the fairness of having two residential
rates (for inside and out of school boards). The gist of the answer was
that those in school board areas have always paid interim PLT, so that's
just how it was. The commercial and industrial rates were lower than
residential because historically that's how it was.
When asked what services these taxes were for she listed off the usual:
DSSAB services, district health, policing. When complaints came up that
lots of the services were lower or non-existant in the remote areas, the
answer was that the assessed value should reflect that.
There was some heated discussion over whether this information session was
'consultations' promised by the MOF. The MPP's both got involved; the end
result was that yes, it was.
There was also severe criticism of the secrecy surrounding the whole
process, and that revenue-neutrality was just an excuse for not doing their
homework and figuring out what the rates should be based on costs. There
wasn't a good answer to that; but she did throw out that the actual costs of
social services in the unincorporated areas was 3 - 4 times the tax. (I.e.
their calculation of the total costs are around $30 - $40 million) [Okay,
I've got to comment: this doesn't take into account the 2:1 subsidy for
municipal contributions, nor the provincial share of the over-all costs --
municipalities & unincorp. only pay a portion of the total costs for the
programs]
I pointed out our research indicated that the municipal taxpayer was paying
only $100 per $100,000 for the same services that we may pay $230 for. I
also asked about the 2:1 subsidies the municipalities enjoy and whether that
was also going to be extended to the unincorporated areas. She had no
answer for the first question, but the MPP's said there was a committment
within the Liberal government to extend 2:1 funding for all roads boards.
No word on when. There was a question as to whether the MTO would be
cutting their contributions for roads to 1/2 : 1. That was denied, and MPP
Bill Mauro promised to find out where the story came from.
Other notes: all PLT taxes go into the consolidated revenue fund and the
dollars can't be tracked in and out. If we want our contributions to the
DSSAB and health units to be labelled as tax contributions and not as
provincial grants, we should talk to the Min. of Social Services and Min. of
Health. Ideally, the MOF would like to find a municipal partner (could be
school board) to administer collecting the PLT; there might then be only one
tax bill for unincorporated ratepayers (with separate lines for PLT,
education, roads, and local service boards). There will be no phase-in of
these taxes because the increases are relatively small. There are no plans
to raise the tax rates -- whatever they end up being -- for the foreseeable
future.
That's about it. I have a few suggestions for the next meetings: there
were lots of media there and we got good coverage on the news in the
afternoon. You may want a spokesperson to be ready for that. Also, if you
have technical questions or lots of questions, write them out and give it to
them as a submission. They'll have time to read it on their next plane
flight. The meeting lasted a bit longer than noon, and there were a number
of small groups in the halls discussion various issues. It's a good time to
put some pressure on your MPP's.
I think they were a bit surprised at the level of turn-out. If Kenora has
a large turn-out as well, our messages might get back to Toronto.
--Fred