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Regions want to raise development charges to fund GO 5 OAKVILLE BEAVER · Wednesday, March 4, 2009 Continued from page 1 The alternative is to make existing taxpayers pay the outstanding invoices, "and I don't think that's fair," explained Carr. Councils at the other 905area municipalities have also passed similar resolutions to Halton, and stopped paying in full GO's invoices over approximately the past two years, said financial staff at the municipalities. According to an allocation formula passed by the GTSB in June 2000, the four regions, along with Hamilton and Toronto, are supposed to jointly pay one-third of the cost of GO's capital expansion budget for projects in those municipalities, with the provincial and federal governments picking up the other two-thirds. Toronto is to pick up 44 per cent of the cost of that onethird, with the 905 municipalities picking up the other 56 per cent based on a complex formula. Halton's percentage is 11 per cent while Hamilton's is the lowest at 2.8 per cent. From 2001 to 2004, Toronto refused to pay GO, arguing it never agreed to the GTSB funding formula. The City and the Province reached an agreement on the issue with Toronto repaying its $32 million in arrears in late 2004. Since 2005, Toronto has paid GO approximately $20 million a year, less than the 44 per cent of the municipalities' onethird share, going by this year's growth capital budget. The 905 regions kept current in their accounts with GO for many years until finding that more and more property taxes were needed to pay their shares. In late 2006, the regions' councils said `enough,' and started paying GO only what they collected in development charges and no more. At issue for all the 905 municipalities is the inability to raise development charges to recoup the full cost of their share of GO's growth capital program. A source at the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing said the issue of GO Transit development charges wasn't dealt with as part of the Provincial-Municipal Fiscal and Service Delivery Review completed last year. "DCs legislative reform isn't on the table," confirmed Oakville Liberal MPP Kevin Flynn. Flynn said he supports some future changes to the DCs Act, but said it is the wrong economic environment to add more charges to developers and further depress the construction market. "Right now, we need more jobs," he explained. Flynn admitted the Province, as the default payer, is covering more than its expected one-third share of GO's capital expansion budget. "The Province has shouldered the load on this because it has to, it needs to," he said. "We understand that we've got to keep that system (GO) moving. "But the regions have a role to play," he added. "You don't want any level of government saying, `We're just not going to pay for this.' That's just not good management." In 2007, anticipating this year's shortfall, Halton set up a GO Transit reserve in case it was legally obligated to pay the full amount invoiced by GO. At the end of 2008, that reserve stood at just over $7 million, but the 2009 budget does not include any more transfers to that reserve. The Province has at its disposal at least one method to force the municipalities to pay GO ­ withholding its own money to them. In order to qualify for the Province's annual transfer of gas tax dollars to municipalities to help fund their local transit systems, the GTAH municipalities are required to demonstrate their payments to GO are current prior to the release of gas tax funds. Halton's four lower-tier municipalities received close to $5 million in provincial gas tax dollars in 2007/08, or about the same amount the Region won't pay GO. Flynn said he doesn't believe the Province will pull the gas tax funding now. "The last thing the public wants right now is to see governments playing some crazy game of brinkmanship," he explained. Mayor Rob Burton said he's interested to see the outcome of this issue. "It's beginning to face off into some kind of Mexican standoff," said Burton, Halton's representative on GO's board of directors. Burton said he is supportive of the Region's refusal to use property tax dollars to pay a portion of GO's capital expansion program. He believes the solution is for the Province to allow municipalities to up their development charges, and hopes to raise the issue with Premier Dalton McGuinty when he attends an Oakville Chamber of Commerce luncheon this Friday. "We have to keep bringing it up until we get some action" he said. HEARING AIDS TOTAL COST FROM $275* Digital, All Styles 2-3 yr. Warranty Hearing Instrument Specialist Hear Right Canada 2457 Mount Forest Drive (at Guelph Line) Burlington Call our Specialists and book your no cost hearing assessment today. 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