NPA mayoral candidate Suzanne Anton is promising to cut taxes by rolling $7.5 million of the city's capital and operating budget surpluses into savings for taxpayers.
Anton, who is her party's lone city councillor, based the $7.5 million surplus figure on a city staff report that went before council last week. The report actually predicts a $1.1 million surplus for the 2011 operating budget and a further $6.6 million from the capital budget.
"If we are elected, the NPA will return year-end budget surpluses directly back to taxpayers," said Anton at a press conference in a plaza at Hastings and Hornby Tuesday. "When city hall takes your tax dollar and doesn't need or use it by the end of the year, that money should go back to you. In other words, if you give me $10 for something and it only costs $9, that dollar should come back to you."
Vision Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Coun. Raymond Louie, who is chairperson of the city's finance committee, said the report is not a final calculation of surpluses for 2011 and it could be a lot less when finalized.
"If she would have read the report, she would have seen in the report that expenditures fluctuate significantly through the year, depending on project implementation," Louie said. "A lot of projects will come in the latter half of the year, and when reported out in 2012 for the year-end of 2011, you'll see that the variances won't have been as great as they are."
Louie called Anton's promise to return savings to taxpayers a "flip-flop" on a vote she cast July 24, 2007 under the previous NPAdominated council, which included Anton and Louie.
At the time, Louie moved a motion that council return $11.8 million of savings from the civic strike to taxpayers. The return would have equalled a 2.3 per cent tax reduction. Anton and then-NPA councillor Elizabeth Ball, who is seeking election Nov. 19, voted against Louie's motion.
"She had an opportunity to actually charge our citizens less money for services that weren't actually provided," Louie said.
In an interview following Tuesday's press conference, Anton said her vote in 2007 occurred under "different economic times" and that city staff "were not confident" the $11.8 million was "a genuine savings."
"[City staff] were unsure whether it really was a savings and certainly in the budget the following year, the budget had to go up quite a bit higher to cover the money that wasn't collected at that point and the money that was returned," she said. "So that was the reason for it."
Anton also promised to continue the property tax shift, which sees homeowners share more of the tax burden to lessen the tax on business owners. Mayor Gregor Robertson, who is seeking reelection, campaigned in 2008 on promoting the tax shift. Anton said she will announce "additional prosperity measures" in the coming weeks.
The election is Nov. 19.
[email protected] Twitter: @Howellings
