EDITORIAL – Paring down of City’s tax increase will please some, not others

An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

KAMLOOPS TAXPAYERS are probably feeling a little better after Tuesday’s (Jan. 20, 2026) committee of the whole meeting in which council pared down the expected increase to this year’s budget.

Instead of the provisional 10.76 per cent initially projected, council will now head into final budget deliberations looking at 7.21 per cent. Question is whether the cuts approved by the council yesterday were wise. The answer depends on your point of view.

The debate on cuts suggested by staff was quite strange. At times, various councillors weren’t even sure if they were voting for a cut or against it because they didn’t understand what was being proposed. At other times, they required staff to repeat how much some of the measures would actually reduce the tax increase, and what the effect would be on future budgets.

And, as is often the case when council’s talk money matters, they bogged down over smaller items, such as the cost of repairs and maintenance of Stuart Wood School, which isn’t owned by the City.

The proposal was to bill the Province the $110,000 annual cost and hope the Eby government pays it. Which raised the question, what if it doesn’t? Would it be smarter to include it in the budget now just in case, or leave it out and deal with it later if the provincial government refuses?

Coun. Nancy Bepple worried about the playground and Coun. Dale Bass worried about museum stuff that’s stored in the building. Coun. Mike O’Reilly, who supported all the suggested cuts, had “no interest” in sinking money into the historic building because the City doesn’t own it.

Coun. Katie Neustaeter argued that $110,000 is a small amount in the grand scheme of things. Council eventually voted to leave it out of the budget and try to invoice the Province.

Bigger items included holding back on the hiring of some additional firefighters and police, and holding the line on the Kamloops Community Action Plan. “I think we’ve done a very good job in providing safety and security to the community,” said Coun. Kelly Hall during the fire protection discussion.

Those items and other tinkering by staff would have brought the increase down to 6.7 per cent, and council came close to that number but not quite. At 7.21 per cent, the increase is far from the two per-cent average in the days of old but is in the ball park of what’s happened in more recent years — ranging from 4.9 per cent to 9.55 per cent since 2022.

Incidentally, when Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson asked whether City staff cuts had been considered, he got the brushoff, being told that was an in camera matter. But there’s clearly no appetite within council, or staff, to look into whether administration is bloated or not.

When councils deal with money, they inherently make choices between two philosophies of budgeting. One approach is to keep budget increases within what seems affordable at the time. In other words, know your limit, play within it, as they say in the casinos. But that means important stuff might have to be kicked down the road to future councils, during which time costs can dramatically increase due to inflation.

So, the other approach is to set the budget according to what’s needed. Get the job done. Damn the torpedos; full speed ahead.

Politics being what it is, civic leaders are shy about big increases, so they engage in a game of compromise. One councillor liked the idea of putting the eventual increase in terms of pennies a day rather than dollars per year because it sounds better.

Will 7.21 per cent, if that’s the final number, please everyone? Of course not. But it will please them more than 10.76 per cent would have. The public will have a chance to find out more detail about the budget at an information meeting Monday, Jan. 26 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the McArthur Island Sports and Events Centre.

Mel Rothenburger is a former regular contributor to CFJC-TV and CBC radio, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and a Webster Foundation Commentator of the Year finalist. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor.  He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.