The public will have to wait nearly a week to find out of council will give the green light to the City of Vancouver's first $2-billion operating budget.

At today's city finance and services meeting, politicians voted to refer discussion and a decision on the operating and capital budget to the next committee meeting on Tuesday (December 17).

City staff initially proposed an 8.2-percent hike in property taxes, as well as a 0.5 percent shift from the commercial to residential category.

Several councillors have criticized the proposed tax increase, including independent Rebecca Bligh, Green member Pete Fry, and the NPA's Lisa Dominato.

In response to those concerns, staff presented three scenarios for council to review with property-tax increases of 5 percent, 6 percent, and 7 percent.

There are options for council to scrap $1 million in spending in the innovation fund, which is used to leverage funds from other levels of government. Another $1 million could be saved by reducing the reserve for storm and snow expenditures, and yet another $1 million could be cut withheld from Oppenheimer Park.

Other potential savings were identified, including cuts to technological investments, scrapping a pilot to have staff work from home to reduce space requiements, and holding staff vacancies open longer than the average time to reduce payroll costs.

Reducing the property-tax hike to 7 percent could be accomplished by delaying procurement by a year for Fire Hall #12, reducing the innovation fund, jacking up parking revenue, removing funding for Oppenheimer Park, reducing fixed costs, delaying filling some positions, delaying improving police service levels, and deferring some capital projects.

Two scenarios were offered to cut the property-tax hike to 6 percent. They include such measures as eliminating the innovation fund, reducing the snow and storm reserve, and funding fewer council priorities, along with other savings identified above.

Keeping a property-tax hike to 5 percent would go further, reducing funding for a city plan, a culture shift, and climate change, among other savings.

There are already fixed-cost tax-funded increases of $28.4 million that the city must pay. Most of this, $23 million, is in salaries and benefits, including payroll taxes.

OneCity's Christine Boyle has previously tweeted about how the initially proposed budget invests in things the public elected council to address, such as the climate emergency, protection for renters, and the opioid crisis.

https://twitter.com/christineeboyle/status/1200203983962329089

According to city staff, an 8.2 percent increase will result in a $211 annual increasefor those who own a single-family home at the median value of $1,755,000.

This percentage increase would translate to an $89 increase for an owner of a median-value residential strata assessed at $740,000.

The multi-year capital budget for 2020 is slated to add $507 million in spending. The largest amount, $142 million, is for water infrastructure, followed by $77 million for transportation, $72.3 million for affordable housing, $41.3 million for community facilities, and $40.9 million for parks and open spaces.