Despite tax increase imposed by the City of Montreal, Beaconsfield protects citizens' ability to pay with its 2018 budget

BEACONSFIELD, QUEBEC--(Marketwired - Jan. 23, 2018) - The Mayor of Beaconsfield, Georges Bourelle, and Council members are proud to announce that despite the inflationary budget of the City of Montreal - which we have vigorously denounced on behalf of our residents - we have managed to counteract its impact to present an amended budget by containing its growth to the lower end of the inflation rate for 2018.

This exercise was all the more demanding as the City of Montreal's administration presented a highly inflationary budget in mid-January, in addition to the costs that increase with inflation (gasoline, electricity, materials, etc.).

In Beaconsfield, these decisions imposed by Montreal alone represent an average increase of $120 in taxes per property, which is three times higher (5.2%) than the inflation rate (1.7%) in 2018! The impact is even more important as half of our taxes are paid directly to the Agglomeration of Montreal, particularly for Police, fire protection, water, property assessment and municipal court services.

Faced with the obstinate refusal of the Plante-Dorais administration to revise their budget to respect citizens' ability to pay, we had to intervene through the services portion of our local budget in Beaconsfield which we fully control, to protect residents' financial capacity while ensuring the maintenance of our services, infrastructures, buildings, equipment and municipal commitments.

Thanks to the exemplary work of our staff and elected officials, we have managed to minimize the significant increase imposed by Montreal and spread the impact below the level of inflation, without imposing an ill-considered burden on our residents, in particular by using $550,000 from our reserve fund to ensure we maintain a balanced budget, $305,000 from a contingency reserve and $75,000 dedicated to forestry.

In this context, Beaconsfield's property tax bill will be slightly increased by 1.68% in 2018.

Residents will always be able to rely on City Council members and the municipal administration to protect their interests and preserve their quality of life in Beaconsfield.