City planning for 3 per cent minimum tax increases over next decade

The city is assuming a minimum tax levy increase of 3 per cent a year as a practical baseline for budgets over the next ten years.

To maintain service levels, infrastructure needs, and community priorities, administration put forth a long range financial plan, which council passed unanimously during Thursday night’s budget review meetings, the first of three that will take place over the coming week.

City manager John Collin said it was important to note the plan “does not necessarily mean a property tax rate of 3 per cent every year.”

“If growth takes off and we manage to receive additional revenues from growth, then future councils will be in a position to entertain a tax rate less than 3 per cent and still reach the goals outlined within the Long Range Financial Plan,” he said.

Collin added that if the city doesn’t meet its growth targets council will have to decide to either increase the tax rate or reduce services.

The plan is a framework that “identifies the cost pressures that the city is going to be facing in the coming years, including inflation and asset management needs, and growth demands,” said commissioner of corporate services and city treasurer, Keri Greaves.

Greaves said the highest cost to municipalities is personnel wage and benefit increases through collective agreement settlements, which account for two-thirds of the 2026 operating budget.

“If the collective agreement is at 3 per cent, in order to achieve even 2.6 per cent, we actually have to not only, increase for the wages, but we also had to find offsets elsewhere in the organization. We’ve done that. I can speak about the last two years. We’ve done that. It’s getting harder and harder to find those offsets,” he said.

Coun. Michael Zussino asked if administration had given thought to reducing the number of staff on the payroll.

Collin said administration is always looking to “find efficiencies in terms of our personnel force structure.”

He said that through extensive reviews city hall has managed to save some positions by reallocating personnel elsewhere within the corporation.

“But that is finite. Municipalities have worked with less than their budgetary needs for many, many years now, because we have not kept up with inflation and certainly not kept up with municipal inflation,” Collin said. “There’s not a whole lot of meat on the bones.”

If council chooses to reduce staff, there is a possibility to save money, but it would ultimately result in service reductions throughout the city, he said.

“There is no ice left on the ice cube that can be shaved in any significant amount,” Collin said.

Coun. Kasey Etreni asked how administration landed on the 3 per cent figure as their baseline.

“The forecast itself assumes there’ll be no reduction in service, even though when the rate of inflation is decreasing, overall costs are still going up,” Greaves said.

He added that the central banks are still targeting 2 per cent inflation, but municipal inflation is much higher than the basket of goods CPI measures.

“The building construction price index, for instance, would be a closer comparator, and over the last several years that index has run about two points higher than CPI. So, if CPI is being forecast in the long run to be 2 per cent, we can assume that the building construction price index would be closer to 4 per cent. So, 3 per cent being kind of in the middle there.” – tbnewswatch.com

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These are the same people that continually squawk about the need for ‘affordable housing’ all the while making housing less affordable by raising taxes.  Increasing property taxes increases the cost of rent, increases the costs of home ownership (if you are lucky enough to able to afford a mortgage).

Every time you hear the words ‘affordable housing’ emanating from the mouth of any of our high salaried residents of City Hall  or our elected representatives, think ‘government subsidized’ housing. Subsidized by senior levels of government. THAT is what they mean.

There is no way that anyone in City Hall will ever make housing affordable by lowering taxes on property.  That will never happen.

Taxes will only go up.  Forever.

There is no incentive for taxes not to go up.  None.

Residents have just got used to the idea that is the way of things.  A never ending cycle.  Inflationary spiral. Whatever.

No matter how much money you earn, it will never be enough.  THAT is our lives now.

Unless you do not earn any money.  THEN you get your stuff for free.  Housing, food, clothes everything…free.

For some reason, the lives of people who have no job, pay no taxes and contribute nothing to the city are more important to our high salaried residents of City Hall than the poor working slobs who are barely scraping by trying to keep their head above financial water.

Funny how that works.