From: sipoa@yahoogroups.com on behalf of Ron Hall [rhall@telus.net]
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2011 9:13 PM
To: sipoa@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [sipoa] SIPOA Delegation Presentation to Islands Trust Council on Budget 2011-2012

A brief update regarding the Islands Trust Council meeting held yesterday, and the presentation (text posted to this group yesterday) by Bernie Ziegler and Ron Hall on behalf of SIPOA:

We were the third of eight delegations to present our views. Delegations are permitted five minutes to deliver their presentation and are given very little leeway on time overrun. We did manage to deliver most, but not quite all of the presentation in the time allotted. Our presentation and one from the Salt Spring Chamber of Commerce were the ones that had most direct focus on taxation issues.

The seemingly good news for taxpayers is that the budget that was passed by the Trust Council provides for a 0.99 percent increase in taxes for the coming year. However, this good news is offset by the fact the reduction was, as the previous reduction announced by the Islands Trust in a news release on February 17th, manufactured through a "buy down" using capital reserve funds.

You will recall from the letter to the Islands Trust from SIPOA president, Murray Rankin,

( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sipoa/files/Budget%20Comment%202011-12%285%29-1-1.doc )

The increased remuneration proposal for Local Trustees was passed by the Trust Council. This combined with the "buy down" approach to reducing taxes for the coming year will mean that holding the line on taxes within the rate of inflation in the year following will be very difficult to achieve.