Grey Highlands council is just days away from starting the 2025 budget process, but it’s obvious some tough decisions will have to be made.
At its meeting on Dec. 4, council received a budget update report from the municipality’s director of finance/treasurer Anna McCarthy.
The report outlined the overall budget situation the municipality is facing heading into its formal 2025 budget deliberations scheduled to start on Dec. 11.
McCarthy’s report showed that, as budget season begins, Grey Highlands is looking at a projected local tax increase of 7.56 per cent in 2025.
There was good news and bad news in the budget numbers.
On the bad news side of the ledger, the early budget numbers show that rising costs continue to put significant pressure on the municipality’s budget.
Areas requiring increases include:
- 2.2 per cent for reversal of reserve transfers from 2024
- 2.5 per cent for policing
- 1.7 per cent for the costs of new long-term debt for previous capital projects
- 1.6 per cent for wages/payroll
- 0.6 per cent for insurance
- 0.5 per cent for other
On the good news side of the ledger, Grey Highlands is projecting real assessment growth of 2.5 per cent, which reduces the overall increase. Additionally, the provincial government recently announced that it would provide funding to municipalities to help offset the OPP cost increases being felt across the province this year. McCarthy estimated that the provincial funding would reduce the projected OPP increase by $300,000 from a total of $393,500.
McCarthy cautioned that staff were still working on the OPP numbers and needed more information from the province before the figures would be finalized.
The report also did not include any increased tax levy support for the municipality’s capital budget. In 2024, the tax levy contributed $1,631,623 to the capital budget of just over $3 million.
Council did not delve deeply into the report, with the formal budget deliberations looming in the near future.
Deputy Mayor Dane Nielsen praised staff for the information they presented in the report.
“This report does a great job of laying out the pressures we’re facing without that shock value,” he said.
Coun. Nadia Dubyk noted that this council is about to work on its third budget and the process is always tough.
“This continues to become more and more challenging every year,” she said.
