County council is putting off the issue of a potential tax rebate tied to the library strike until budget talks.
A Municipal Freedom of Information Request saw figures brought forward by County of Essex CAO Brian Gregg on Wednesday night, showing a projected surplus in the library budget of $340,000 if the strike ends by October 31 — nearly $680,000 if the strike lasts until the end of the year.
Lakeshore Deputy Mayor Al Fazio supported the motion, feeling the matter needed to be well considered.
"It makes sense. It could've been a knee-jerk reaction, I don't know, but I think that's the place that we have to address it," says Fazio. "As long as we address it at the time and hopefully the strike is over by that time."
The 58 library workers in the Essex County system have been on strike for 118 days.
The towns of Lakeshore, Amherstburg and Essex have also requested refunds regarding the surplus dollars from library operations.
However, Essex Deputy Mayor and Essex County Library Board Chair Richard Meloche isn't in favour of rebating the surplus directly to taxpayers.
"Even for the Town of Essex to write a cheque to every person to send them back $6, it would probably cost us $6 to write the cheque to send back," says Meloche. "We could look at a direct rebate on the property tax bill and then you minus $6 off their tax bill. Is it significant enough to make a difference? I'm not quite sure."
Meloche feels there's appropriate places to spend the money within the library system.
"There's going to be upcoming costs associated with upgrades to various library facilities," says Meloche. "Those anticipated upgrades are going to happen regardless and [if the surplus is rebated] will cause an increase [in the tax levy] in future years."
Gregg stressed the county itself couldn't rebate taxes directly to ratepayers, but would have to refund the money to individual municipalities which could in turn give a rebate to taxpayers.
The year-to-date figures as of the end of September show the county has spent $411,000 on security with a further $12,000 spent on security cameras and $47,000 on legal costs.
