Newmarket residents are split on the idea of cutting services to reduce a potential 7.67 per cent town property tax increase, according to a NewmarketToday poll.
Council is grappling with the tax increase as it begins its budget deliberations, the figure representing the largest town tax increase in at least a decade. Town staff have cited inflation as a major driver for the increase.
As council floated the idea of finding service cuts to help reduce that increase, NewmarketToday wanted to know what our readers thought. We polled 671 NewmarketToday.ca readers and asked the question: Should the Town of Newmarket cut services to reduce a possible 7.67% tax increase?
More than half of local respondents indicated they do not want to see service cuts — about 21 per cent were willing to pay the hefty increase to maintain services, while 31 per cent want council to cut the rate by decreasing expenses in other areas of the budget. Just under half of respondents would encourage services cuts to reduce cuts — nearly 27 per cent would accept major reductions in service, while about 21 per cent favour minor reductions in service along with a reduced tax increase.
The poll ran from 1/30/2023 to 2/3/2023. Of the 671 votes, we can determine that 416 are from within the community. The full results are as follows:
Results are based on an online study of adult NewmarketToday.ca readers that are located in Newmarket. The margin of error is +/- 3.77%, 19 times out of 20. NewmarketToday.ca uses a variety of techniques to capture data, detect and prevent fraudulent votes, detect and prevent robots, and filter out non-local and duplicate votes.
Newmarket Mayor John Taylor said the issue of taxes and service cuts engages residents, and the mix of opinions is not surprising.
But he added that "based on my years of experience, fewer people tend to support cuts to services as they come to more fully understand which services need to be cut and the impact that service cuts have on the community and residents' day-to-day lives."
The most popular response was against service cuts and indicated the government should find other ways to reduce the tax increase, which got approximately 31.01 per cent of local votes.
"This administration needs to remember they were voted into to office to manage the multi-million dollar corporation of the Town of Newmarket," one NewmarketToday reader said. "They were deemed the have the best skills and abilities to do this by the voters in Newmarket. I have to say I was a wee bit surprised that the only area where costs can be reduced are in services. Is this the only area where our tax dollars are spent? I think not."
Still, others have been less critical of the government's direction.
"More money is required to deal with poverty, mental health and homelessness and this increase will barely keep up with inflation," one local commenter said. "Raising taxes is never easy and I trust that the council and staff are working flat out to keep them to a minimum."
Council will be meeting about the town budget over the next two months and is expected to pass the budget April 3. The town said there will be upcoming public engagement opportunities.
"As council and staff work through the budget process we will continue to engage residents on the difficult balance of maintaining service levels given the economic landscape, and finding ways to reduce the tax impact," Taylor said.
You can arrange to speak at future council budget meetings by contacting [email protected], and also share comments and feedback with [email protected].
