34 – Where will the money come from?

Despite the mayor’s contrary claims, Beaconsfield has the money to build an acoustic barrier and has always had it.

34.1 COVID: little effect

The mayor repeated that COVID-19 had no significant impact on the finances of the city of Beaconsfield (see city council meetings of April and May 2020).

The receivable taxes are the same. Only the slowdown in the real estate market has weakened, it generates the “welcome taxes”. Also, the mayor announced that he expects additional cash from federal or provincial municipal assistance programs.

The mayor also announced that he had cut some expenses (additional staff), which he said would compensate for the extra expenses caused by COVID.

34.2 Significant operating surplus

In the June 2019 issue of CONTACT, the mayor tells us that the welcome tax has generated operating surpluses of $ 2 million per year for the past 5 years. We add that 2019 will also be exceptional.

Knowing that the city’s budget is $ 20 Million per year, this represents a surplus of 10% per year for 6 years, or $ 12 Million in total.

34.3 So, the city’s finances are very healthy

This extra money is now largely accumulated in the city’s financial statements (see the allocated surplus at 9,1 Million $ in 2019, it was 2,6 Million $ in 2014). So, approximately 6,5 Million $ have been put in reserve in the last 5 years.

Ultimately, the city could therefore pay cash for most of its share of the acoustic screen, without increasing taxes.

34.4 Increase taxes? Not in Beaconsfield, but AGGLO …

By assuming its fair share of the acoustic screen, the city will NOT have to raise its taxes to protect the health of its citizens. The City of Beaconsfield will only have to use a small portion of its large operating surplus from recent years.

If we look at the evolution of our tax accounts for the last 11 years, we see that municipal taxes have even decreased thanks, among other things, to the significant contribution of these welcome taxes.

In conclusion, building the acoustic screen will NOT increase Beaconsfield municipal taxes.

On the other hand, agglo’s taxes for 11 years have increased by more than 32%. And this trend does not seem to stop, our agglomeration taxes will continue to increase.

34.5 Beaconsfield does not want to protect the quality of life of 8,000 people?

Cities create reserves in their financial statements and include them in their Three-Year Capital Plan (TCP) for major projects. This is the way to spread a large expense over a few years. The acoustic barrier is one such important project.

Despite repeated requests from citizens for several years, the administration of the city of Beaconsfield has refused to create a specific reserve for the construction of acoustic barriers. No mention is made of the Beaconsfield TCP despite the imminence of a proposal by the MTQ!

However, this is the technique generally used in cities that intend to build such structures (see the financial statements and TCP of Pointe-Claire, Baie d’Urfé, etc.). This reduces the burden on citizens when funding has to be developed.

The following file contains an extract from the TCPs of Beaconsfield ($ 0), Baie d’Urfé $ 2 million), Longueuil ($ 7 million), ($ 10 million).

This desire to protect the quality of life is not unique to Baie d’Urfé, Pointe-Claire, or Longueuil. Several joint projects (City-MTQ) of acoustic barriers have been carried out since the 1980s.

34.6 Cost reduction : missed opportunities

The city is aware of the noise issue and has had a copy of the two noise measurements reports in Beaconsfield since 1987.

Building the acoustic barrier in 1987, or even in 2010 would have cost much less than in 2020. In addition, a responsible administration would therefore have set aside reserve. For example:

• a minimum annual reserve, say $ 100,000 during this time. We would then have accumulated nearly $ 3.5 Million plus interest,
• Even starting with, say, $ 250,000 a year since 2010, we would already have $ 2.5 million plus interest in reserve, which would further reduce the need for funding.

In short, for the past, if the Beaconsfield administration had recognized its shared responsibility, a less expensive acoustic barriers ($ 5 million) would already be paid without an increase in taxes.

34.7 HOW DO WE PAY ? Create a reserve

But today, when no one has seen this situation coming (!!! ??? !!!), what can we do? Recall that this is an expenditure estimated at worst at $ 50 per year per residence for 25 years.

It would be easy to book now $ 2.5 Million from the financial statements without penalizing the city’s activities. This would immediately and immediately reduce the burden of the anticipated debt to finance the construction of an acoustic barrier to protect the health of one third of the population of Beaconsfield.

Here are some concrete measures that are still possible now to build a reserve:

• Allocate immediately at least $ 1 Million to this new reserve,
• Use part of the operating surplus (welcome tax). For example, by reserving 5% of the accumulated total ($ 500,000), and 5% of the next operating surplus caused by the welcome tax (5% of $ 2 Million = $ 100,000 per year),
• Move the balance of the Angell Woods reserve. This reserve is close to $ 800,000 according to the city’s 2019 financial statements. This land will be transferred to the agglomeration as an integral part of the super urban park on the west of the island of Montreal. The balance of this reserve will now be unused and available for transfer to the reserve for the acoustic barrier.
• Redeploy the balance of the budgets provided for the three UNNECESSARY environmental projects and their consultants which omit the main source of pollution (A-20) at Beaconsfield.