THE District of West Vancouver spends more tax dollars per resident than any other government in the Lower Mainland, according to the Business Council of British Columbia.
At $2,040, West Vancouver topped 21 Metro Vancouver governments in per capita spending in 2010 - a 64 per cent increase since 2000 when West Vancouver was ranked second overall. Adjusted for inflation and population growth, local governments are spending about 32 per cent more per capita now than in 2000.
The numbers come from a report released by the business council this week.
The result of spending growth has been property taxes creeping ever upward while other levels of government work to reign in spending, according to Jock Finlayson, BCBC's executive vice-president.
"Residents and businesses are looking for leaders to hold the line on spending and find ways to create efficiencies, collaborate, and use best practices to reallocate expenditures to the highest priority areas," said Finlayson in a press release.
West Vancouver Mayor Michael Smith said the report is using flawed methods to judge the municipalities.
"There are a lot of inaccuracies in that report," Smith said. "They're looking at expenses, not offsetting revenues. In our case, we're the only municipality offering its own bus line but we get 100 per cent of that back from TransLink."
Smith said per capita spending is not a useful way to measure overall financial prudence, especially as West Vancouver has disproportionately fewer families compared to the more affordable Fraser Valley communities.
"That skews the per capita costs. It costs just as much to provide water and sewer to a house with four or five people as it does for a house with one or two," he said. "You can make numbers tell any story you want, but in this case, the numbers are far from telling the real story."
Smith said it is better to examine a government's history of tax hikes, rather than its spending habits. West Vancouver has only had a 1.1 per cent increase in the last three years, and it was the only Metro Vancouver government to freeze its tax rates in 2012, he noted.
As for spending, Smith said his council is always looking for ways to do more with less.
"We're reviewing all of our business units with an end objective of ensuring that we know exactly what services we're offering and why we're offering them and whether we need to be offering them and can they be offered in a more cost effective way," he said.
"All of that is going to unfold in the future."
Smith said local governments' hands are tied when it comes to some cost issues like dealing with police and firefighters' labour costs, which are often imposed by an arbitrator when a settlement with the respective unions can't be reached.
"We've lobbied the provincial government to give us the tools to change that and there's been no reaction," he said.
The Business Council of British Columbia's report ranks the City of North Vancouver 10th out of the 21 Lower Mainland governments at $1,285 per capita - up 42 per cent since 2000.
The District of North Vancouver spends $1,206 per capita, the eighth highest in Metro.
