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Remarks by David B. Flemming In preparing its 2004 budget, the City of Ottawa was faced with the challenge of cutting $109 million from the $1.8 billion municipal budget or increasing the property tax mill-rate by up to 10%. This shortfall was a result of inflation, additional costs relating to amalgamation, and a property tax mill-rate that hadn’t increased in over ten years In 2003, Ottawa property owners had already seen an average 6% property tax increase as a result of a Provincial government decision to download a portion of the commercial tax rate onto the residential rate. City Council, finding itself with a modest surplus in a pension account, and it being an election year, provided property owners with a one-time refund to help ease this burden. All of the incumbents in the 2003 election campaign, save one, campaigned on a promise to “hold the line on taxes” and at the same time promised Ottawans a balanced budget. The one Councillor who opposed this view stressed that such a position was unreasonable in a City which hadn’t increased its property tax mill rate in over a decade, noting that the taxes generated through increases in property assessments are “revenue neutral” since the City is unable, by law, to benefit from any tax increase other than that which results from an increase in the property tax mill-rate. He and all the other incumbents who ran in the November 2003 election, were re-elected As a prelude to the preparation of a draft budget, a Universal Program Review was carried out in late 2003 and early 2004 to describe the impacts of a 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% and 100% reduction in each of the City’s services and programs. In early January, an informal coalition of museums, historical societies and heritage groups was formed under the auspices of the Council for Heritage Organizations in Ottawa (CHOO/COPO) to formulate a co-ordinated response to the implications of any reduction in cultural funding as a result of the Universal Program Review. CHOO/COPO had already prepared a document entitled The Case for Preserving and Enhancing City Support for Local Heritage which outlined the importance of the City’s museum and heritage resources. This case was supported by the Ottawa 20/20 Arts & Heritage Plan which had been adopted by City Council in April 2003. Public meetings were held to elicit opinions on the Universal Program Review. Individuals and groups were urged to attend these meetings and make their views known. Although this review provided an opportunity for citizens to express their opinions on the importance of various municipal services, many used it as an opportunity to complain about the various tax increases noted above and that the City was not being run efficiently. Community groups, especially arts and heritage organizations, which sought to defend their programs were branded by many “tax-freeze” councillors as “special interest” groups whose views were somehow not as important as those of the “ordinary taxpayer.”
In order to balance the budget, City staff recommended the reduction or elimination of numerous community, health, welfare and cultural (arts and heritage) programs. The cuts amounted to a reduction of over 80% of the total cultural budget of $3.8 million. The heritage programs were especially hard hit with $1.5 million of the $1.8 million budget earmarked for elimination This would have involved closing the City’s four directly managed museums and cutting the grants to six others, which would led to the closure of most these also. Grants to historical and heritage societies and cultural were also eliminated. Only the City’s Archives, which the City is legally obligated to operate was able to save its core budget. Staff justified most of these cuts by rating most cultural programs as “enhanced” rather than ”base” responsibilities of the municipality. The total per capita grant for culture would be reduced from $3.89 (already the lowest in the country among comparable cities) to fifty-seven cents per capita! The heritage committee, which had organized to respond to the Universal Program Review, now re-formed as the Strong Voice for Heritage Coalition. This name was chosen to provide a link with the Strong Voice for Heritage in the New City of Ottawa report which was prepared under the auspices of CHOO/COPO in 1999-2000, as part of the amalgamation plans for the City. Although the Coalition kept in regular contact with the arts advocates, it was decided to focus all of our activities on the heritage sector and including in it, a call for general support for the larger “cultural” component. The Coalition consisted of a core of up to 15 heritage professionals, activists and volunteers whose intention it was to rally support for and publicize the need for cultural programs generally, and heritage programs specifically. A meeting of the heritage community was held the day after the tabling of the draft budget which provided a review of the Universal Review Process and set a course of action for the five weeks leading up to the tabling of the final budget. Because we had been branded as a “special interest” groups, we decided that those who spoke at the public budget consultation meetings would speak as individual tax payers rather than as representatives of specific groups or organizations. Materials were provided to each of the archival, museum and heritage organizations which in turn were passed along to their individual members. The Coalition made public statements on the importance of heritage to the community but the lobbying of the mayor and councilors was done by individuals. Only in media interviews and during the meeting of the Standing Committee of Council did coalition members speak on behalf of their own organizations. The public budget meetings were not always pleasant. Those espousing support for arts and heritage were often met with shouts and outbursts of anger from “tax-freeze” supporters. There were many references to the “artsy fartsy crowd” and when one young artist made a plea for support for cultural programs, a tax-freeze supporter shouted that she should get “a real job”. At a meeting in Kanata, a member of our group who supported an increase in taxes had to leave the meeting, being escorted by some museum studies students because his remarks in support of a tax increase had elicited such a violent reaction from many in attendance. Although there was a strong feeling among some Coalition members that we should recommend a tax increase in order to preserve cultural programs, there was a minority which opposed this tactic, feeling that we should be urging staff cuts and other administrative cutbacks in order to balance the budget. At least two members withdrew from our group over the taxation issue. We wished them well in the efforts and kept them informed of our activities. In the material which we sent to our representative organizations for distribution to their members, we urged those writing to the Mayor and Council or attending the public meetings to convey five key messages:
Individuals were given the option of supporting a tax increase if they so wished and suggesting areas where cuts could be made to make funds available for the reinstatement of cultural programs and services. The aim of this strategy was not to try and convince Council that heritage is important but to be “counted” as someone supporting the reinstatement of the cultural funding. In fact, the title of one of our communications was: “It’s a Numbers Game!” Members of the coalition did a number of media interviews throughout the process, however our prime media event was the Heritage Day reception held at City Hall on February 16. We decided that we had to confront the Mayor on the duplicity of not raising the budget crisis until after the municipal election and pointing out the misguided decision to cut the cultural budget. Most in attendance wore black arm bands to mourn our loss and with the help of a group of museums studies students from Algonquin College, we asked everyone attending to provide us with the numbers of volunteer hours they gave to community organizations and during the ceremonies these were provided with a monetary value. In my closing remarks at the reception, I challenged the mayor on the method used to balance the budget and on the apparent duplicity in only bringing the budget crisis to light after the municipal election. I conveyed the same messages which we had been delivering at the public meetings and I was able to announce that our volunteer survey showed that the nearly 100 volunteers who registered their hours had donated over $750,000 worth of work to the city in 2003. We ended the reception with a moment of silence for our loss holding high our copies of the Arts & Heritage Plan. The Mayor said afterwards that it was the first time he had been booed at a public event. In the weeks that followed, dozens of individuals attended public meetings speaking in support of arts and heritage. We don’t know how many e-mailed the politicians but we have heard that the numbers were significant and they did make a difference. Letters critical of the cultural cuts were sent to the mayor and councilors from heads of local, regional, national and even international cultural organizations. Representatives of dozens of groups and organizations made presentations to the Health, Recreation & Social Services Standing Committee and while the committee was meeting, over 1600 people demonstrated in support of the reinstatement of cultural, health and recreational services. The final budget that was approved in March reinstated nearly all of the arts and heritage programs and services, thanks to a reduction in other services, a shift in a portion of the residential rate back to the commercial rate, and a 2.9% increase in the property tax rate. The whole debate resulted in a bitter split on Council over the taxation
issue and staff efficiency, or lack of same, in running the City. Unfortunately
much of this divisiveness I am pleased to report however, that we are now in the midst of a public consultation exercise to help “build” the 2005 budget. Most councilors seem to have finally realized that a city that has only raised its taxes by less than 3% where other large cities have had increases of 15-20% cannot continue to sustain the level of service that most citizens expect. Council will not approve the final budget until mid-February and we will see a budget draft in mid-December. We are hopeful that the events of earlier this year will not be repeated however, we are ready to go again if required. _____________________________________________ |