I’d rather have graded streets because we seem to get snow here. If we are that poor a library shouldn’t be in the budget along with a downtown arena that will cost 10 times the price today, billions more.
Yes, libraries can assess their own taxes. If the City wanted to play hardball, they could charge the library enough in service charges as to capture the library's revenue. "Oh, you've raised 100M through library taxes? Your water bill is now 20M/y.".
I think you forget that all taxes come from the same source. The tax base. Just because there are two hands digging for money, does not mean that there is more money to go around.
Every dollar that the library takes is a dollar that the city cannot.
We don't have to forget it. The city can't take library funds any more than the federal government can take provincial tax money. Maybe if citizens were to donate 15 million to tax removal like they have for the library we'd have better snow removal.
The things is, there is always going to be competition for that money. The NIH has a paper from about 4-5 years ago provides a solid research paper on the positive effect of libraries on the health and well being of the community.
And I don't disagree with that. Only the implication of your later words in the context of following the original sub-thread creators claim that the library shouldn't be in the budget before grading.
"Every dollar that the library takes is a dollar that the city cannot" implies that the library's use is less valid than the city's. I think the money is better spent on a library than on extra grading.
So put the library tax dollar bucket on hold, we could and will likely get a lot more snow this winter. The city spent $300,000 just naming the new bus system, it’s all an expensive joke.
Nobody can get to the library if the streets are impassable or just destroy your suspension or worse just to get to the precious library.
The city doesn’t have the legal authority to just take money from the library budget. It would be like Saskatoon taking money out of Martensville’s budget. They are separate tax entities
So taxes I pay to the city don’t go to the library?
It’s all from the same pot of money. That’s the simplest way I can explain it to you.
These “entities” are part of the entire budget that certainly CAN be adjusted. Your example about Martinsville is laughable and way off from the topic at hand.
No, you pay some taxes to the city, and you pay different taxes to the library, in the same way you pay yet different taxes to the province and different taxes again to the feds
In layman’s terms, some of my taxes are paying for taxes but nothing in the 6% property tax increase has anything to do with it.
The library’s haven’t grown in many years but yet the amount of managers in the library’s has increased significantly. At least a 100% increase. That is not justifiable and the public deserves to know about that expense detail.
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u/spaceman_88 Nov 27 '24
I’d rather have graded streets because we seem to get snow here. If we are that poor a library shouldn’t be in the budget along with a downtown arena that will cost 10 times the price today, billions more.