http://www.vicnews.com/news/162967816.html
By Roszan Holmen - Victoria News
Published: July 18, 2012
8:00 PM
Call it a sign of the times.
Victoria residents will soon have the
opportunity to make a donation toward their city’s capital projects, if a new
legacy fund gets the green light from city council.
While endowment funds are typically directed
to a social service or centre for the arts, the proposed Shape Your Future
Legacy Fund will direct citizen donations to such projects as bike lanes,
playgrounds or bus shelters.
“In the long term we could use this fund to
build a new swimming pool, or do anything that citizens want to do,” said Coun.
Lisa Helps.
She is scheduled to introduce the idea to
council at its governance and priorities committee meeting tomorrow (July 19).
At a time when the city faces an
infrastructure deficit of approximately $500 million, the fund could help the
city achieve the types of things that improve quality of life, freeing up money
to deal with necessary infrastructure projects, such as sewers and roads.
If council approves the fund – alongside a
$7,500 contribution – it would likely be the first in Canada. It could prove to
be the new frontier of philanthropy as municipalities across North America find
creative ways to deal with crumbling infrastructure and declining revenues.
Whether Victoria residents will have an
appetite to donate is another question. Taxpayers have come to expect their tax
dollars will pay for the types of projects that this legacy fund targets.
“It may very well have some appeal, but it’s
hard to say,” said Sandra Richardson, CEO of the Victoria
Foundation. “It’s perhaps not as appealing (as other endowment
funds), but if you think about all the wonderful things that are in the city
and if people think ‘my goodness, the city can’t afford to do this, maybe if I
left something of my estate, the Crystal Pool could continue to exist.’”
When Richardson first heard of the idea, she
called Helps and offered to partner with the city to manage the fund.
The Victoria Foundation has offered $7,500
on condition the city matches the contribution.
People could make a small monthly donation,
or make a large one-time donation, Helps said.
Crystal Pool, she pointed out, was built
thanks to a legacy from the McPherson family. Today, the pool is nearing the
end of its serviceable life, but the city has no funds allocated to replace the
facility. A new campaign through the Legacy Fund could put donations to work to
build its replacement.
Embracing this type of fund will take an
attitude of ownership, said Richardson.
“It should be more about ‘If this is our
community, how do we keep it to be this beautiful, vibrant community?’ Funding
in all three government sectors has really been pushed back, so it does cause
people to say, ‘how can we work differently?’ It will be quite interesting to
see the result of this.”
The root cause is the reduction in personal income taxes for the top brackets and corporate taxes to 10%, resulting in a significant decrease in government income. So you can do one of three things: increase government income to historical levels, increase and/or create new user fees and taxes (such as the HST) or get ready to live with third world infrastructure.
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