Before City Hall Raises Taxes Again, It Should Ask One Simple Question: Can Residents Afford It?
A public education piece from Voice of Nanaimo
Every year, City Hall builds a budget.
Departments submit their needs. Staff prepare reports. Council debates projects, staffing, infrastructure, service levels, and long-term plans. Then the tax increase is presented to the public.
But one question is often treated as an afterthought:
Can the people paying the bill actually afford it?
That is why Nanaimo needs a serious taxpayer affordability study.
Not another glossy vision document. Not another consultant report telling City Hall how to grow government. Not another strategy filled with slogans, targets, and “aspirational” language.
A real affordability study.
One that starts with the taxpayer.
Points to Ponder
1. Should tax increases begin with what City Hall wants to spend — or what taxpayers can reasonably afford?
2. How much local tax, utility, user fee, hospital, regional, and school tax pressure can households and businesses actually carry?
3. If affordability matters in housing, groceries, insurance, and wages, why should City Hall be exempt from the same reality?
4. Will candidates support a full taxpayer affordability study before approving more major tax increases?
Bottom line: City spending should be limited by taxpayer affordability, not driven by City Hall ambition. Before City Hall asks for more, it should prove it has asked enough of itself.
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What Is a Taxpayer Affordability Study?
A taxpayer affordability study asks a basic but powerful question:
How much can households and businesses reasonably carry before local government itself becomes part of the affordability crisis?
It would examine things like household income levels, seniors on fixed incomes, renters indirectly paying property taxes through rent, mortgage and insurance costs, utility fees, user charges, business taxes, unemployment, and the cumulative burden of city, regional district, hospital, school, and other taxes.
In plain English, it asks:
What is the real-world breaking point for the people funding City Hall?
That question matters.
Because a tax increase may look manageable inside a spreadsheet. But around a kitchen table, it can mean less money for groceries, repairs, gas, insurance, dental care, or helping family.
City Hall Often Starts With What It Wants
The usual budget process starts with what City Hall wants to spend.
New programs. New staff. New buildings. New studies. New plans. New initiatives. New “strategic priorities.”
Then the tax increase is calculated to support that spending.
That is backwards.
A taxpayer-first budget would begin with affordability.
It would ask:
What can the public reasonably afford — and how do we fit essential services inside that limit?
That does not mean starving the city of money. It does not mean ignoring roads, water, sewer, policing, fire protection, parks, or infrastructure.
It means recognizing that taxpayers are not an unlimited revenue source.
City Hall does not have a money problem until it has honestly examined whether it has a spending-priority problem.
How This Connects to a Core Service Review
A core service review asks:
What services should the city provide, what do they cost, and are they being delivered efficiently?
A taxpayer affordability study asks:
How much can citizens afford to pay for those services?
The two belong together.
A core review looks inward at City Hall.
An affordability study looks outward at the taxpayer.
One asks whether the machine is efficient.
The other asks whether the people funding the machine can survive the bill.
That is exactly why both are needed.
And it is also why both are often resisted.
Why City Hall Resists Affordability Studies
City Hall may not openly oppose the idea of affordability. Almost everyone claims to care about affordability.
But a real affordability study changes the starting point of the conversation.
It limits the easy answer.
Without an affordability study, every department can argue its needs. Every project can be framed as important. Every new cost can be justified in isolation.
But when taxpayers are placed at the centre of the discussion, the question changes.
It is no longer:
“How much money does City Hall want?”
It becomes:
“How much pressure can residents and businesses actually bear?”
That is a very different conversation.
And frankly, it is one many municipal governments do not want to have.
Because once affordability becomes the standard, council must start making harder choices.
Projects may need to be delayed. Programs may need to be reviewed. Staffing levels may need to be questioned. Nice-to-have spending may need to give way to must-have services. Long-term plans may need to be measured against present-day household reality.
That is uncomfortable for City Hall.
But it is necessary for taxpayers.
Affordability Is Not Anti-City Hall
This is important.
Calling for a taxpayer affordability study is not anti-worker. It is not anti-service. It is not anti-infrastructure. It is not anti-community.
It is pro-reality.
A city cannot build a healthy future by quietly making life unaffordable for the people who live there.
A city cannot claim to care about housing affordability while constantly increasing the cost of owning, renting, building, or operating in that same city.
A city cannot talk about economic development while pulling more and more money out of households and local businesses.
At some point, affordability has to become more than a slogan.
It has to become a budget rule.
The Hidden Problem: Compounding Increases
One of the tricks of municipal budgeting is that each annual increase is presented on its own.
A 5% increase this year. Another increase next year. Then another. Then higher user fees. Then utility increases. Then regional and hospital taxes. Then inflation on everything else.
Each increase may be defended as reasonable in the moment.
But families do not pay taxes one year at a time in isolation. They live with the accumulated burden.
Small increases compound.
Over several years, what sounded manageable can become punishing.
That is why taxpayers need a full affordability picture — not just the annual budget speech.
The Question Council Should Be Forced to Answer
Before approving another tax increase, every councillor should be asked:
What evidence do you have that Nanaimo taxpayers can afford this?
Not whether the city wants the money. Not whether staff recommended it. Not whether the project sounds good. Not whether other cities are doing something similar.
The question is simpler:
Can the people paying the bill afford it?
If council cannot answer that with hard evidence, then the tax increase is not truly justified.
It is merely approved.
And those are not the same thing.
What a Proper Study Should Produce
A serious taxpayer affordability study should produce clear, public answers:
1. What is the total local tax and fee burden on the average household?
2. How has that burden changed over the past 5, 10, and 15 years?
3. How does that compare to household income growth?
4. How are seniors, renters, young families, and small businesses affected?
5. What level of annual increase is sustainable?
6. At what point do local taxes and fees contribute to financial stress, displacement, or business closures?
7. What spending choices would be required to keep tax increases within an affordability limit?
That last question is the big one.
Because affordability only matters if it changes decisions.
A Taxpayer-First Budget Rule
Nanaimo needs a new principle:
City spending should be limited by taxpayer affordability, not driven by City Hall ambition.
That does not mean taxes never rise.
It means tax increases must be justified against the real financial condition of the people paying them.
Before City Hall asks for more, it should prove it has asked enough of itself.
That means reviewing services. Reviewing staffing. Reviewing priorities. Reviewing capital projects. Reviewing debt. Reviewing long-term obligations. Reviewing whether every dollar taken from taxpayers is being used wisely.
That is not radical.
That is responsible government.
The Bottom Line
A core service review asks whether City Hall is doing the right things, in the right way, at the right cost.
A taxpayer affordability study asks whether citizens can afford the bill.
Nanaimo needs both.
Because when tax increases are based only on what City Hall wants to spend, the taxpayer becomes an afterthought.
And when the taxpayer becomes an afterthought, affordability becomes a casualty.
This election year, residents should ask every candidate a simple question:
Will you support a full taxpayer affordability study before approving more major tax increases?
The answer will tell you a lot.
Not just about their platform.
But about who they believe City Hall is supposed to serve.
Voice of Nanaimo
Independent civic news, taxpayer accountability, and public engagement.
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