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VICTORIA - Victoria Council has some tough decisions to make before the end of the month; how to stretch property taxes to cover a budget that already has a shortfall.
The initial projection has council considering a 4.75% tax increase, a hike of $80 to $100 on the average home in Victoria.

Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin says the major pressure on the city is doing more with less.

That pressure will be put on city taxpayers who'll have to come up with more money to deal with issues such as housing the city's homeless population.

Increased policing costs to keep downtown safe is an area where Victoria feels it is once again picking up the tab for the region.

To help curb the tax bill council is looking at unique ways of generating revenue such as selling the naming rights to the conference centre or placing advertising on the city's new parking meters

"That's not totally realistic and probably wouldn't generate a lot of revenue" says Fortin "We need longer term solutions."

What ever increase Council approves it will only deal with short term issues. As the oldest city in Canada west of Winnipeg, Victoria is facing major infrastructure issues that officials say will run into the millions of dollars. Victoria's Mayor the province should contribute funds, possibly from sales taxes.

The city could get some relief with a hike in parking fees and cancelling free parking on Sundays.

The mayor is non committal on that, but he acknowledges there will be pressure to increase parking fees when the HST is introduced on July 1, 2010.

The harmonized tax will eat up 650 thousand dollars of annual revenue, money the city says it cannot afford to lose and a cost that the Mayor says he is not prepared to pass onto homeowners.