Montreal pledges budget estimate to demerged 'burbs

The City of Montreal now says it will try to help out the island's 15 demerged municipalities by providing them with an early estimate of what its budget will look like either today or Monday, in an effort to help them table their own as early as possible. "Yesterday, during the agglomeration council meeting, (St. Laurent borough mayor and executive committee vice-chairman) Alan De Sousa pledged to provide the mayors of the reconstituted cities with an estimation of what their fair share of agglomeration expenses would be," spokesperson Darren Becker told The Chronicle. "Obviously, the final numbers will be in January," he said.

That delay to Montreal's 2010 budget was originally announced in November, prompting several West Island municipalities to forego passing their own individual budgets this month. "We decided not to adopt the budget in December," said Beaconsfield Mayor David Pollock at that city's December council meeting earlier this week. The town had held a public consultation meeting over its budget two weeks ago, during which Pollock speculated adoption may take place at a special meeting Dec. 21.

However, this week, he said the adoption of Montreal's budget into January would have made an early adoption by Beaconsfield pointless, since agglomeration taxes would be an unknown quantity. "There is certainly a fear that there will be an increase in agglomeration taxes when the city of Montreal adopts its budget," Pollock told those who attended the city's last council meeting.

Although residents of Montreal's demerged suburbs usually receive a single tax bill per year, it is marked with two different amounts: one which goes directly to the coffers of the city they reside in, and the other to Montreal's agglomeration council for centralized services.

It is that portion of taxes that Pollock warned may go up. "We're expecting it," also said Dollard des Ormeaux Mayor Ed Janiszewski of an agglo tax hike.

Janiszewski's council has also delayed the adoption of his budget into the new year.. He said it might not happen until the last Friday of January if Montreal delays the adoption of its budget all the way until the end of that month.

Janiszewski said Dollard residents may see a small increase in the West Island city's part of taxes. "The Dollard part—the increase will be definitely less than two per cent," he added. "We still have to pay for gas, for electricity and all that stuff," he said, stating the local increase will be less than the inflation rate.

Meanwhile, in her financial report available on the city's website, Baie d'Urfé Mayor Maria Tutino predicts her council will table a budget at "a special council meeting on January 12, 2010."

In a public notice, the city of Kirkland has notified its residents a special meeting for budget adoption which was to take place on Dec. 21 has been delayed to January 18, 2010.

Dorval is the only West Island city to have passed a budget so far, estimating that Montreal will issue a five per cent agglo tax increase.

Earlier this week, Pointe Claire Mayor Bill McMurchie told The Chronicle the city was planning on a budget meeting Dec. 21 as well, but may postpone it due to the delays with the agglomeration council.