We are A Community Organization founded in August 2012
Mission Statement: We stand for effective balanced leadership in our municipality. Balance suddenly becomes important after an Imbalance occurs ! City of Kitchener Issues To-Date: as of October 2013
June 2013: Concern: Kitchener Utilities customers in Kitchener are paying a much higher rate for natural gas than supplied by Union Gas in Waterloo - an average of 90% higher from 2009 thru June 2013. March 2013: Suggestion: Examine limiting evening parking at Charles/Benson Street parking garage to bottom 2 floors to save unneeded electricity expenses. January 2013: Concern: Fire Dept. budget has gone up 5.73% each year over six years from 2007 onwards as a result of increased pension obligation and compensation arbitration awards. Suggestion: Consideration of a Regional Fire Dept. instead of the current each city and township model with associated three Fire Chiefs reporting to three different City Councils. June 2012: (Began in 2011) Concern: Victoria Park water re-vitalization costs broken out into the newly created storm-water management system as a fee-based cost, removing it from the tax base (as an additional levy through utilities). If the city does not decrease its sum of the proposed 2011 property tax increase plus the storm-water fee, the actual increase would be 14.5 %. Result: Budget actual for 2011 was 9.2% including taxes and storm-water fees. Year Proposed Tax Increase Actual Tax Increase Difference
2011 14.50 % 9.20 % 5.30%
2012 3.87 % 2.39 % 1.48 %
2013 2.87% 1.39% 1.48 %
2014 1.25 % Maximum TBD ** TBD **
* 2014 Rate of inflation expected to be between 1.3 to 1.5%
** TBD – To Be Determined
JOIN US. HELP US WORK TOWARDS EFFECTIVE BALANCED LEADERSHIP at CITY HALL
Kitchener-Waterloo Regional Issues To-Date: as of October 2013
January 2013: Concern: Police Dept. budget has gone up 9.1% each year over a nine year period ending in 2012 also a result of increased pension and compensation arbitration awards. May 2011: Concern: Rapid Transit plan – Prior to making a costly decision on LRT and BRT's, Peak time road use will require infrastructure to be built and actually generating a lack of savings of $ 1 billion. Suggestion: Review comparison of ridership increase from monitoring Via Rail vs. GO Transit ridership for “real” data, explore potential usage of smaller buses in suburbs to those areas where this would be viable. HELP US WORK TOWARDS EFFECTIVE BALANCED LEADERSHIP in KW REGION
Contact Info:
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Kitchener Tax Watch Group Harald A. Drewitz, CMA, Chairperson
519-579-4388 (h) 519-897-4679 (c)
www .facebook.com/KitchenerTaxWatchGroup [email protected]
