The financials aren’t explained, or to be believed
With little public discussion, the District of West Vancouver mayor and council approved their budget and five-year plan in recent weeks. They determined the direction of billions of dollars with hardly any public input or debate. In a process unprecedented in District history, the 2026 budget proposals were first made public on January 6 and effectively finalized in the Council Report dated January 14.
Apart from the terrible process, taxpayers ought to be concerned about the numbers themselves and the direction of the community’s finances. This will be an important issue in the October 17 election campaign.
At first glance, this year’s 3.43% property tax increase appears only slightly worse than inflation, but appearances can be deceptive.
First off, we know it isn’t the total tax bill; the Metro Vancouver and other portions push the total up, and in the years ahead the annual toll for the North Shore Wastewater Treatment plant will quintuple (to $968 on a $3.68 million home). A big issue is the way money is being moved around.
This year, as it did last year, mayor and council have dipped into reserves to flatten the rate increase. It’s an election year, so I guess the thinking is to push the problem down the road.
Reserves are savings that ought to be used for sudden problems, not the sudden urge to mask problems. The next mayor and council now face higher tax rates to meet expenditures and restore reserves, unless some serious surgery on the finances is performed or significant new revenue suddenly surfaces.
The projected property tax increases from the District’s documents are significant—7.9%, 4.4%, 3.9%, and 3.6% in 2027 through 2030. (Let’s not forget the wastewater plant bill is hitting homeowners for 30 years.)
Are taxes going up because it costs more to run services? Because we are investing in infrastructure? Or because we are adding new spending?
Increases tied to day-to-day operations appear to drop sharply after 2027—1.4%, 0.9%, and 0.6% in years 2028, 2029 and 2030.
That raises a basic question: How is that supposed to happen? Are we expecting cost reductions, service changes, or staffing adjustments?
Because if there is a plan to achieve that, it hasn’t been clearly explained. And if there isn’t, these projections risk giving a misleading sense of stability.
That concern is reinforced by the fact that the two recent budgets have relied on using reserves to ease short-term pressure. Starting in 2027, the levy to try to restore asset and environmental reserves triples to 3% annually.
The short-term disguise of the situation didn’t remove the cost. It merely delays it.
And when we see operating levy increases projected to fall to near zero, we have to wonder whether those numbers reflect an actual plan, or whether they simply understate what can be expected will take to maintain District services.
And that is the risk here: That the plan, as presented, significantly understates the true cost of maintaining services in this community.
There is no clear statement of the long-term plan for property taxes. No clear target for what is affordable. No clear explanation of how these projections will actually be achieved.
Without that, the financial plan becomes difficult to follow, and difficult to trust.
And that is the concern.
A five-year plan should make things clearer and provide a roadmap for the District’s finances. It should show not just what might happen, but how it will happen.