After eight meetings, five drafts and much back and forth between councillors and staff, Collingwood council ratified their 2023 budget on Monday night, locking in a tax rate increase of 2.7 per cent this year.
The 2.7 per cent tax rate increase translates to an $5.30 per month increase in taxes for the median assessed Collingwood household ($327,000) in 2023.
“Thank you so much to our staff who worked so hard on this and listened to us and the community and brought us a budget we could all support,” said Mayor Yvonne Hamlin. “I’d also like to thank members of the community who came to the public meetings, filled out the budget survey or talked to our staff at the market.”
“I know many people in our community are struggling as the price of almost everything continues to rise. With inflation over six per cent, this has been a tough one,” she said.
The 2023 Collingwood budget accounts for $133.7 million in spending, with about a 50-50 split for capital versus operating costs. The 2023 operating budget is comprised of $66.7 million in operating expenses and $63.3 million in capital expenses.
A blended tax rate increase, which includes school board (estimated no change) and County of Simcoe taxes (3.5 per cent increase), is estimated to be 2.5 per cent overall.
Major capital projects in the 2023 draft budget include storm sewer repairs on Minnesota Street ($5.1M), widening Mountain Road ($4.3M), completing the Awen water play splash pad ($2.3M), Summit View Park ($1.5M), Wilson Sheffield Park ($1.1M), Hens and Chickens Trail bridge ($450K), full LED replacement for all municipal facilities ($600K), and replacing the accessible entrance doors at the Collingwood library ($150K).
The first draft of Collingwood’s 2023 budget proposed back in November included just "unavoidable increases," which proposed a 1.78 per cent tax increase.
The first draft also included a list of value-added items (also called items for consideration), some proposed by staff, and some the result of council requests from the previous year. Staff informed council that approving the list in its entirety would bring the tax rate increase to 5.15 per cent or higher, depending on which priorities council decided were most important to add this coming year.
These items included $314,000 added to the asset management plan reserve, $305,000 toward an urban forestry unit and $91,000 toward a transit coordinator position.
During second-draft discussions on Dec. 5, council voted to eliminate items such as $65,000 for a fireworks drone show, $100,000 for a heritage review, $50,000 in continued support for the urban economy forum and $12,000 for new software for social media monitoring. At that time, however, they voted in favour of bumping the affordable housing reserve up from $125,000 to $350,000 in 2023.
Council's votes to include the value-added items brought the proposed tax rate up to 4.92 per cent.
On Jan. 9, council sent the entire budget back to staff to reduce the tax rate by at least one per cent, in part by allocating funds from the terminals revitalization reserve.
On Jan. 17 following staff achieving that one per cent reduction, council voted to further reduce the budget by eliminating a new staff position for a fleet and facilities coordinator ($115,000) and to reduce the addition of one full-time transit co-ordinator instead to a part-time position ($45,000). Council also voted at that time in favour of having staff and consultant reports brought back to council on the formation of the urban forestry unit.
During Monday’s meeting, Deputy Mayor Tim Fryer put forward a motion to further remove the asset management plan increase and the special capital levy increase, however, it was defeated by a vote of 6-3, with only Fryer, Coun. Chris Potts and Coun. Rob Ring in favour.
For ratification of the final budget, the votes were split into two parts. Council voted 6-0 in favour of parts of the budget pertaining to employees of the corporation. Fryer, Potts and Coun. Kathy Jeffery recused themselves from voting on this section as they declared they had family members who are employed by the town.
The remaining parts of the budget were ratified by a vote of 7-2, with Fryer and Potts opposed.
