The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Pour plus de reseignemonts, veuillez visitor Ia site gotransitcom gotransit.com/schedulechanges ROLIN] .55 per cent. This includes the li- brary and hospital’s portion of the tax bill. With the Region’s proposed 1.8 per cent increase, the total im- pact on the tax bill would be 1.7 per cent for rural residents and 1.35 per cent for urban. The combined impact on the tax bill then, per $100,000 of assessment is $13.46 for urban residents and $12.69 for rural. Linda Leeds, director of corporate services and treasurer, put it in per- spective during her pre- sentation, saying that if Mississauga passes a two per cent tax increase, Mil- ton would need to pass a 21 per cent increase to have the same financial impact. And according to Council- lor Rick DiLorenzo, herein lies the problem with how the Town budgets. “We are patting ourselves on the back for having the lowest tax rate in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area), but how are we doing that? It’s not been sustainable....we are not heading in the right direc- tion," he said. DiLorenzo evidenced his claim us- ing a graph showing the decline of Milton’s stabilization reserves. These act as “savings” accounts that the Town puts money into for future use or contingencies, for instance, the ice storm of 2013. The graph showed a decline in total reserves of close to $6 million from 2011 to 2015. The Ward 7 councillor recommend- ed that every time council found a way to reduce money in the budget, 50 per cent would go to address the reserve imbalance and the other 50 per cent would go to keep taxes low. His motion was opposed. ”And the downward trend contin- ues," DiLorenzo added in an email to The Champion. Another controversial item on the agenda was Saturday transit service. Councillor Rick Malboeuf put forth a motion to have it removed from the budget, citing figures from Mil- ton Transit that showed a per-hour ridership of just 6.9 people, costing $300,000 annually. ”I don't think it’s successful and it’s costly to taxpayers," he said. Di Lorenzo concerned about Town’s stabilization reserves. Rick Di Lorenzo Cindy Lunau Councillor Zeeshan Hamid comi- cally responded, "let’s recognize the horses and stop beating them...we have councillors stuck in old subur- ban sprawl mentality refusing to ac- knowledge reality.” He argued that Milton’s population growth, which is estimated to hit 158,800 by 2024, would inevitably result in increased ridership. The motion was struck down. 3:» Frustrations continued to W a mount as more motions \‘ came forward, some car- ried, some lost, only for the budget to be voted down.Twice. “I’m absolutely startled. This has become nothing but political," said Council- lor Cindy Lunau, arguing that councillors were us- ing the budget process to enhance their political im- age instead of making the Town financially viable. Local and Regional Coun- cillor Mike Cluett re- sponded with this:"we are Lunau politicians. This is a politi- cal process. lam doing the job I was elected to do.” Cluett then slashed $172,000 out of the infrastructure budget, more specifically, an expanded asphalt program, which would increase the life cycle of roadways. The allocated costs for roadways in the proposed budget are $13.4 million. “We're going to have to make tough decisions. ls it going to suck at the end? Probably, but let’s move for- ward because we still don’t know what’s going to happen at the Re- gion," he said. Funding of $125,000 was also cut from the Winter Control Reserve, leaving it with $125,000. A program to eliminate weeds in parks and boulevard areas was also slashed by $175,000. in hopes that the third time would be the last, councillors voted to ac- cept the proposed budget by a vote of 8 to 3. DiLorenzo, Malboeuf and Arnold Huffman opposed it. After the final cuts were made, the gross operating budget for the Town was $103,511,312 and the capital budget, $32,028,472. It is exâ€" pected to be ratified in two weeks. Rachael Williams can be reached at rwi/liams@miltoncanadianchampi- on.com or on Twitter @MiltonReports.