After day one of the 2025 budget process, taxpayers in the Town of The Blue Mountains face a local tax increase of 11.11 per cent.
On Jan. 14, council held a special budget committee of the whole meeting to kick off the process to set the 2025 budget. Council and staff met for more than seven hours to review the draft budget numbers and make decisions on requests for budget additions/enhancements.
The meeting started with a draft tax increase of 10.06 per cent. Items increasing in that figure included:
- Staff salaries and benefits changes - $1,979,697
- Other inflationary impacts - $592,778
- A decrease in investment income due to lower interest rates - $200,000
- OPP and police services board cost increases - $111,688
- Conservation Authority increases - $37,148
The full list can be found in the staff budget report here.
However, right out of the gate town finance staff made three recommendations to reduce the 10.06 per cent increase to 6.9 per cent.
Staff suggested a $500,000 reduction to the annual transfer to reserves for future capital projects. In addition, staff said hiring of new firefighters could be delayed until the fourth quarter saving $137,925. Staff also suggested council delay a $50,000 increase to the community grants and donations budget to 2026. Council quickly approved all three suggestions to reduce the draft tax increase.
Council then spent the rest of the day considering a list of 15 budget additions/enhancements that had come forward during the development of the draft budget. The additions totalled $1,644,470 or an additional 7.87 per cent of the tax levy.
The enhancements consisted of a combination of requests for new staff positions, money for physician recruitment, the creation of an urban forestry department for the town, additional funding for transit services received from the Town of Collingwood and funding to begin the process to implement a Community Planning Permit System for the town. The full list of the additional items can be found in the staff report here.
After hours of discussion and debate, council tentatively approved seven of the 15 items for just over $916,000. These decisions added 4.21 per cent to the overall tax hike bringing that number to 11.11 per cent. Council could revisit items to remove or add them as budget deliberations continue.
Items approved by council included:
- $518,600 to start the process to create an urban forestry department for the town
- $100,000 for physician recruitment efforts
- $75,000 for increases expected to the transit agreement with the Town of Collingwood
- $50,000 for the Community Planning Permit System project
- $40,606 for a new parks department staff member
- $122,600 for new community services staff
- $10,000 for a project to update the town’s engineering standards for projects that are road reconstructions instead of new roads being added
At the conclusion of the meeting, the deputy mayor and finance chair Peter Bordignon asked members of council to put on their thinking caps ahead of the second committee of the whole budget meeting to be held on Jan. 17 starting at 9:30 a.m.
“Let’s take a look at everything we can as we go into Friday,” said Bordignon, who suggested council needed to “look for opportunities” for increasing revenue.
Coun. Shawn McKinlay asked if Friday’s meeting would include an opportunity to revisit items approved during the first meeting.
“Now that we have our tally,” McKinlay said, in reference to the 11.11 tax increase.
Acting CAO Adam Smith said council could take that step at Friday’s meeting.
“I don’t think everything is set in stone,” said Smith. “There is more to come on Friday.”
