Grey Highlands mayor questions proposed county tax hike

Grey Highlands Mayor Paul McQueen is not happy with the possibility of a four per cent tax increase at Grey County.

At county’s council’s meeting on Nov. 14, council received its first glimpse of how the 2025 budget is shaping up.

Although the budget was not on the agenda for the meeting, McQueen pulled the minutes from the Oct. 28 meeting of the budget and finance committee from the consent agenda for further discussion.

McQueen noted that the minutes referred to a 2025 draft budget with a county tax increase of just under four per cent. The same minutes also noted real assessment growth for the county of more than $2 million.

Details behind the numbers were not available as part of the minutes for the committee meeting. Grey County council will begin 2025 budget deliberations on Friday, Dec. 6 with a committee of the whole meeting.

In his comments on the matter, McQueen said he isn’t impressed with the numbers he’s seeing.

“To me, I think four per cent is too high,” he said and questioned why the rate increase was at that level considering the real assessment growth. “(The growth) is the largest we’ve ever seen. That four per cent is way too high.”

McQueen said lower-tier municipalities are facing significant cost pressures in the coming year with policing costs for the OPP rising dramatically. He said the county needs to keep its budget increase to a minimum and he called for a two- or, at the most, a three-per-cent increase from the county.

“There are ways we can look at that,” he said.

McQueen was the lone member of council to make comments about the looming budget deliberations, although Warden Brian Milne closed the discussion with an acknowledgement that councillors were facing a tough year on the budget.

“I think we can agree, it’s going to be an extremely difficult budget year as it was last year,” he said.

The draft 2025 budget will be presented to county council at a committee of the whole meeting on Dec. 6 starting at 10 a.m.