Collingwood councillors were rolling up their sleeves today to deal with the latest draft of the 2025 budget, and will be starting off with a significant reduction over the last draft.
At their committee of the whole meeting on Dec. 2, council will pore over the latest draft, which forecasts a tax increase of 6.96 per cent, down from the original proposal of 8.94 per cent.
However, some news delivered on Friday from the province, after the second draft of the budget was prepared, means the projected tax increase will actually be reduced further to 4.52 per cent — nearly half of what was originally proposed.
This past Friday, the province announced it would be offering $77 million to municipalities to offset the skyrocketing OPP billing increase seen by many Ontario municipalities this year.
On Monday morning, Mayor Yvonne Hamlin said in a statement this would reduce Collingwood’s bill from $7.1 million to $6.1 million, which would bring Collingwood’s overall OPP increase from 37 per cent down to 18 per cent.
“We provided significant feedback from the Town of Collingwood to the province about the initial increase,” said Hamlin in the statement. “I am happy that our concerns were acted upon.”
In addition to the spike in OPP costs and a $985,000 revenue reduction from reserves, there is also a $5.6-million funding gap for the renewal of existing town assets.
In 2024, council voted to use that year’s budget surplus to offset a major tax increase, with that year’s increase coming in at 1.67 per cent once the surplus was applied. At that time, then-treasurer Monica Quinlan warned councillors that such a move would, essentially, push the inevitable tax increase down the road to 2025.
Current treasurer Jennifer Graham has said, with one month left in the year, that there likely isn’t a surplus to pull from this year to offset a tax increase.
Council sat for a six-hour meeting on Nov. 13 to try to reduce the budget as much as possible, however found the task difficult.
Of the $2,681,766 operating budget resource requests made by town staff for next year so far, council did cut $55,000 proposed for a town council governance and structure review and $13,000 for a seasonal communications student.
Councillors also removed a $375,000 request to add funds to reserves for a future arts centre and multi-use recreation facility. Those changes, along with some miscalculation errors discovered and corrected for the second draft, account for the 6.96 per cent increase.
At that meeting, there were still some further operating requests not yet discussed, nor had the capital budget been addressed yet.
Any decisions made during committee of the whole on the budget are not final, and any items removed can be returned, or new items added, up until the budget is ratified. The budget is expected to be ratified at council’s meeting on Dec. 16 unless council requests more changes or time.
However, the reduction in the OPP costs will make the process a little easier for councillors today.
“Thank you (Solicitor General) Minister (Michael) Kerzner for your quick action to resolve this before our 2025 budget deliberations are completed,” said Hamlin.
