Every year one of the most important discussions at council is my presentation of the city’s annual budget. While as Council we can talk about important issues and priorities for the community, it’s the budget that ultimately determines where our municipal tax dollars are spent, and which City projects and initiatives move forward.
The 2025 budget is very much a back-to-basics budget. Given the effects of inflation and other cost pressures – the focus this year is on core services and critical needs in our community. The budget includes $9.5M for affordable and supportive housing projects, $7.5M for much needed road repairs and $2.3M towards the new automated garbage collection system. There’s also money for new buses, investment in parks and more resources to ensure our public spaces are both clean and safe. Inflation affects everything, including the cost of city services. Which means that this year’s property tax rate increase for everything except policing is 2.8%.
The biggest challenge with this year’s overall city budget is the escalating costs in the police budget. With new wage settlements and several other cost pressures, police budgets across the province have risen dramatically. In Kingston, the increased cost just to maintain the existing level of policing means an additional 2.5% property tax increase. That pushes our annual property tax increase from 2.8% to 5.3%. Although that still leaves Kingston with one of the lowest property tax increases of any large city in Ontario, a 5.3% tax increase is still too high.
Late last year, the Ontario government announced funding for communities where policing is provided by the OPP, to help offset some of the cost increases from policing. This needs to be the standard across Ontario – we need the same support for rising municipal policing costs. This additional help is only fair and it will help reduce the tax increase for our residents. I will continue to work with my council colleagues, Ontario Big City Mayors and others to push for more municipal policing support. City Council is set to discuss the 2025 budget starting on January 20.
Video: A Big picture view of the 2025 City Budget
Note: This video was originally shared on social media (Facebook and Instagram) on January 10, 2025.