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Municipal mill rates a good way to compare at budget time, says taxpayer

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Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to beautiful historic Town of Amherstburg. The 2025 Municipal budget has been submitted by council and I would like to provide some comments on the documents I have reviewed. 


First, the layout and charts provided were very professionally done by our administrative staff. It appears that we are heading for another increase in 2025, the Amherstburg taxpayer will pay a 5.3 per cent increase or approximately $150 on a property assessed at $250,000.


Council appears to be attempting to justify the tax increase by providing data and charts comparing our increase with other municipal budgets in the County of Essex. This type of information can be very misleading to the public. Using percentages in isolation lacks context and may lead to misinterpretation or incorrect conclusions. Without additional information on the impact the budget increases have on the tax rate you will not have a complete picture or understanding of the budget. 


A more meaningful chart that should be displayed by council is the municipal tax rate (mill rate) comparison in the county as follows: 


Tax rates in 2024 lowest to highest taxes: Municipality, Population and Tax rate (mill rate)

1) Lakeshore    40,410 --- 0.01376483,  

2) Kingsville     22,119 --- 0.01519042,

3) Tecumseh 23,300 --- 0.01534266,

4) Essex 21,216 --- 0.01645593,     

5) LaSalle 32,721 --- 0.01800593,  

6) Leamington   29,680 ---  0.01823275,       

7) Amherstburg   23,524  --- 0.01826836.


This data shows we are not in a good financial position in comparison to our neighboring county municipalities and that financial constraints are required to bring us back to a more favourable position to attract industry and future developments.


When using the Tecumseh tax rate of .01534266 multiplied by an assessed property value of $350,000, taxes will amount to $5,369.93 for the year 2024 in comparison to Amherstburg of $6,393.93.


I believe council should be looking or incorporating other approaches when it comes to budgeting. Currently the Canadian rate of inflation on goods and services for 2024 has been estimated to be around two per cent. 


Council has exceeded this estimate and continues to soar like eagles towards becoming the most unaffordable community in the County of Essex when comparing taxes, water and sewage costs. 


If our municipal services are costing more than other county municipality find out why so that we can benefit by incorporating efficiencies and strengthening our financial position.


—Dan DiGiovanni

Amherstburg  

Municipal mill rates a good way to compare at budget time, says taxpayer

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