Since 2015, Oakland-Wawanesa council has repeatedly dismissed calls to fix the budget imbalance in which Oakland pays disproportionately more than Wawanesa for shared services.
With another municipal budget expected to be approved on May 2, I want to recap council’s unwillingness to find a fair tax solution:
- August 2015. Council muzzles rural councillor Dennis Rome for speaking out about inequality in the amalgamated municipality’s first budget and other financial irregularities.
- May 2016. Rome is the lone vote against the 2016 budget which increase rural taxes and reduces village taxes. He votes against municipal budgets in 2017 and 2018 for the same reason.
- March 2017. Head of council Dave Kreklewich asks council to consider adopting a harmonized tax system with a single mill rate and pooled taxes, despite a council vote two months earlier affirming differential taxation for rural and urban areas.
- April 2017. After receiving a citizens’ petition supporting differential taxation, council narrowly votes to maintain differential mill rates. All Wawanesa-based councillors vote against.
- May 2017. Council rejects a proposal by rural councillors to use cash reserves to soften a 7% increase to rural mill rates, even though the reserves would come from Oakland taxes collected prior to amalgamation.
- June 2017. Council rejects resolutions from rural citizens for monthly financial reporting, regular ward meetings, segregating reserve funds held by rural and urban prior to amalgamation and limiting the number of closed-door council meetings.
- March 2018. Council increases the mill rate on rural property, despite farmland values rising 50% on average through the 2018 provincial reassessment. Soaring rural property pumps additional cash into shared services with the village, for which Oakland contributes 86% and Wawanesa pays 14%.
- June 2018. At a meeting of southwest municipalities, Oakland-Wawanesa councillors vote against lobbying the provincial government to retain differential taxation, directly opposing their own policy.
- March 2019. Rural councillors Barry Fowell and Dennis Rome resign, citing council’s unwillingness to work fairly and collaboratively on behalf of all residents.
- April 2019. Council is presented with a 100-name petition calling for At-Large funding for shared services to be based on population, not property values.
Also in April, council rejected my request to delay approving the 2019 operating budget until two new rural councillors can be elected.
I proposed the delay during council’s public budget meeting on April 15. Rural-urban taxation remains a contentious issue and the empty council seats swings the voting balance from 4-3 rural to 3-2 village.
Council’s refusal, in a written statement issued April 17, continues a pattern of shutting down rural residents and elected officials seeking a fair tax solution.
The stakes are high. From 2015 to 2018, municipal taxes paid by Oakland residents increased nearly 40% while equivalent taxes in Wawanesa dropped 31%.
Regards,
-Glen