Decreased increase proposed

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Port Alberni Mayor Sharie Minions spent time trimming costs out of the 2024 budget at council’s Committee of the Whole meeting last night.

She asked Finance Director Andrew McGifford to find more ways of using their $1.2 million in gas tax funds to offset tax increases, and push some planned projects into future years.

“A rough calculation of the value of the motions that I made today, if they are approved by council, would reduce the tax increase this year by approximately 7%,” she said. “I think we’re getting down to an amount that is still high, but more reasonable, but I think that it’s not a long-term sustainable plan and we all have to recognize that.”

Minions asked that the $135,000 in fines received from Randy Brown be used to reduce the bylaw department budget, and other reserves like the Community Forest funds be used to pay for community improvements, and fire trucks fill up at the Co-op cardlock instead of buying their own fuel tanks.

If her recommendations are accepted, the residential tax increase could be reduced to below 10%

At the start of the meeting, members of the public warned council the previously proposed 17% tax increase would be devastating for seniors and people on fixed incomes, and that the city was going to create homelessness.