Preparations for the 2010 Town budget began in earnest Monday and a three-hour Orangeville Council session ended with the town-only increase in property taxes standing at 2.6 per cent, or about $60 on a home assessed at $250,000.

When combined with the county and education levies, the overall tax increase would be just 1.5 per cent, says town treasurer Bill McKennan.

However, the figures will likely change after next Monday’s budget meeting.

While the percentage increase is lower than it has been in previous years, many Orangeville ratepayers will likely see higher hikes, due to reassessment by the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation

MPAC) in 2007 that’s being phased in over four years.

An example of this is an Orangeville home that had been assessed at $182,000 in 2005 and was reassessed by MPAC as worth $224,000, an increase of $42,000 or 23 per cent.

A freeze on assessments meant that from 2005 to 2008, that home was still taxed based on a value of $182,000. From 2009 on through to 2012, however, the increase in assessed value will be phased in with four equal annual increments of $10,500 to cover the overall increase.

Thus, the homeowner is paying taxes on a $192,500 house in 2009, on a $203,000 house in 2010 and so on, until he will be paying taxes on a $224,000 property in 2012.

To compensate, the county lowered its tax rate, (effectively the percentage of a property’s assessed value), from .42311 to .40332 per cent.

In 2010, Orangeville’s rate of .7764 per cent will remain unchanged from 2009. This same home’s town-only tax portion will increase by $81.52 in 2010, when the house is officially valued at 203,000, which is an increase of about five per cent.

On the other hand, any property reassessed at a lower value will see its tax bill decreased, and while other homes did not have such large assessment increases, some had increases above the 23- per-cent average.

Overall in Orangeville, Mr. McKennan figured, on average a 2.6 per cent town-only increase will work out to about $58.

Meanwhile, Councillor Sylvia Bradley, who also chairs the budget committee, applauded Mr. McKennan for presenting a “clean, concise and easy to understand” budget document.

She also said she would be comfortable with a 2.6- percent town-only increase, provided a proper portion of the levy is directed to replenishing the town’s cash reserves. “We have to look at the whole tax bill,” she said, “and we really need to address the reserves problem.”

Deputy Mayor and committee member Warren Maycock said a challenge for the committee will be to finance and maintain existing municipal services while staying within the framework of the tax revenues. “It will be nice to have more money in reserves,” he said, “but we should also be concentrating on keeping taxes as low as possible.”

Mr. Maycock said the town should aim to have increases kept to the pace of inflation, which he estimated to be in the area of 1.7 per cent.

On Monday night, the budget document came in with a town-only increase of 2.9 per cent and stated that, with its existing operating and capital budget proposals, the town would need to raise an additional $647,741 through the tax levy to meet the objectives.

Throughout the course of the meeting, the committee pared $47,500 off that amount.

One department which came under particular scrutiny Monday was the Orangeville Public Library, which submitted a 2010 budget request more than $290,000 beyond what the library was estimated to have spent in 2009.

The major portion of the library request was to cover increased salaries of $35,072 for full-time and $140,692 for part-time staff.

“Our staff is working at full capacity and are also providing many volunteer hours to accomplish tasks that should be done on work time,” said Darla Fraser, chair of the Orangeville Library board.

She pointed out that the library’s service desks are “busier than ever,” adding that circulation of materials at the library’s two branches increased by over 13 per cent and that over 10,000 participated in the 488 programs the staff conducted in 2009.

“We need to be providing appropriate breaks and coverage to support our front line staff,” said Ms. Fraser.

“We are currently not meeting this on a daily basis at Alder or on a weekend basis at Mill.

“(We need) our staff to have appropriate meal breaks where they do not have to remain in the building to be on call to answer a question or perform a function. We need our library service to be available with consistent hours year-round at both facilities.”