CambridgeToday received the following letter from John Waylett of the Ontario Property Taxpayers Alliance.
Not long ago Doug Craig wrote an article called "If You Want Tax Relief, Look To The Province" Published in CambridgeToday. The OPTA begs to differ.
Doug, Waterloo Region and its Tier 2 municipalities pay their employees at least 10% more than private sector employees doing the same type work. And they have far better benefits. About 90% have defined benefit pensions while just 9% of private sector workers have defined benefit pensions.
And the waste, inefficiency and lack of accountability for poor performance is rewarded with job security! Are you kidding?
You say "Want tax relief? Look to the province ...". Well, why don't you talk about Waterloo Region and its municipalities where they will have a combined 2025 payroll (SWB) of about $1 billion dollars.
If they were paid the same as private sector workers doing the same type jobs, and if they increased their productivity level to being equal to that of the private sector, we would save $100 million in SWB and another $90 million in productivity gains. And Regional / Municipal workers would still enjoy their far better benefits! That's $190 million dollars in savings going into the Waterloo Region and Municipal employee pockets that should be going to social programs.
So you better think again Doug! The province transfers a lot of money to the Region and its Municipalities. The region and its municipalities are fat, bloated monopolies living on the gravy train paid for by the hard-earned property tax dollars of its home owners. People, join the Ontario Property Taxpayers Alliance if you want to help bring about change - go to www.propertytaxpayer.ca and sign up.
John Waylett
Ontario Property Taxpayers Alliance
Cambridge
