Revenue Streams

WHEREAS the Provincial Task Force on Community Opportunities released its Building Stronger Communities report at the 2006 UBCM convention stating, in part, the missing component in regional economic development is the economic feedback loop, a mechanism designed to share with the region the direct benefits of increased economic production; AND WHEREAS there are numerous revenue streams available to both the provincial and national levels that are far more suited to the delivery of many local government services and that have the ability to grow with the economy in a much more demonstrable manner than property taxation alone; AND WHEREAS growing federal and provincial revenues have greatly outpaced the growth of local property taxation and have a much closer correlation with economic growth resulting in increasing senior government surpluses while local governments have fallen further and further behind in their ability to maintain critical infrastructure, let alone to meet new and increasing constituent demands; AND WHEREAS many of the growing service demands placed on local governments both by their constituents and by senior levels of government have absolutely no correlation to property or to the value of property and funding strictly through property taxation does not take into account ability to pay or who benefits from the services being provided: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that senior governments identify alternative sustainable revenue streams and develop a mechanism to ensure that local governments, providing the most direct services to residents, benefit from those revenue streams and are able to meet their ever growing responsibilities.