Bite the bullet, 3.38 per cent is not that bad

King Township council passed its 2007 budget Monday night.

While there was considerable discussion, including some rather harsh words, the point is this was the culmination of a considerable and lengthy process, involving no less than four public sessions and a dozen staff reports.

In the end, councillors approved a 3.38 per cent property tax increase, although that hinges on staff being able to find the $20,000 that Councillor Linda Pabst successfully pushed for to fix up the kitchen at Nobleton Community Hall.

For some in the community, that 3.38 per cent is probably about 3.38 percentage points too much, while others will realize that tax increases are a necessary evil, and just another fact of life.

With that in mind, we would assert that Councillor Jack Rupke came as close as anyone to really explaining why a tax increase is necessary.

"Society today is demanding a lot more than nothing," he commented in the middle of Monday's discussions.

How true, and yet how easy it seems for people to forget.

Society's expectations from government are a lot higher than they were some years ago, and the reality is those expectations come at a price. That's a basic rule that too many voters neglected to take into account in the early '90s, when they demanded no tax increases at the municipal level and the result was a lot of important work, like maintaining certain infrastructure, was allowed to slide. People who saw these implications coming were either voted out if they held or sought office, or were held up to ridicule if they spoke out in another forum. Yet the overriding reality is they were right.

Did Township councillors pass a perfect budget Monday night? Show us perfection.

There is always room for improvement, as Councillor Jeff Laidlaw pointed out when he passed around a document he prepared raising certain concerns, to the indignation of some of his colleagues. While we would agree he was within his rights to raise these points, there is a time for everything, and in terms of time, he had plenty of that over the last couple of months to pass around that document.

But councillors do have an electorate to answer to, and as Rupke pointed out, they can be demanding.

So that 3.38 per cent my not be that heavy after all.