2025 Budget

Peterborough, ON – City Council received for information the City of Peterborough Draft 2025 Budget during its General Committee meeting on Monday, November 4, 2024 ahead of a series of public meetings that will be held in November and December before the expected adoption of the 2025 Budget on December 9, 2024.

Draft 2025 Budget information is posted at peterborough.ca/Budget, including a new interactive tool, OpenBook, to provide new ways for residents to view City budget information through tables, charts and graphs.

A public meeting with a brief presentation on the Draft Budget followed by an opportunity for residents to speak with City staff will be held from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 7, 2024 in the multi-purpose room at the Healthy Planet Arena, 911 Monaghan Rd.

There will be an informal drop-in opportunity to speak with City staff about the Draft 2025 Budget from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday, November 12, 2024 in the main foyer of City Hall, 500 George St. N. There will not be a staff presentation at this session. It is an opportunity to drop in to speak with the City’s budget team in an informal setting to ask questions and share comments ahead of the formal meeting of City Council’s General Committee later that evening.

Residents can register to speak to Council about the Draft 2025 Budget during Council’s General Committee meeting that will start at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, November 12, 2024 in the Council Chambers at City Hall. Visit peterborough.ca/delegations or call 705-742-7777 ext. 1820 to register as a delegation. The meeting can be watched online at peterborough.ca/WatchCouncil.

Council will hear from certain local boards and agencies on their 2025 Budget requests to the City during a General Committee meeting that starts at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, November 12, 2024 in the Council Chambers at City Hall.

Council is expected to review, discuss and debate the contents of the Draft 2025 Budget during a General Committee meeting that will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday, November 18 and Tuesday, November 19, 2024 in the Council Chambers at City Hall. There are no public delegations during the General Committee meeting on November 18 and 19. The meetings are open to the public to attend and can be watched live at peterborough.ca/WatchCouncil.

The Draft 2025 Budget outlines the City’s plan for investments in services and infrastructure next year.

To generally maintain current levels of service and fund infrastructure projects, the Draft 2025 Budget includes a recommended all-inclusive rate increase of 7.8%. To meet Council’s direction of a 5% all-inclusive rate increase, staff have identified discretionary spending areas across various services for Council’s consideration.

A 7.8% increase would equal a $12.13-per-month increase for every $100,000 of property assessment, or $145.56 total change for the year.

Factors affecting the Draft 2025 Budget include impacts such as staffing costs, inflationary factors, capital financing expenses, and a projected decrease in parking revenues.

Staffing costs to support the provision of municipal services would account for a little less than 30% of the City’s total budget in 2025.

With the decision to bring services in-house that are currently provided by outside agencies, including Information Technology services, Water services, the Riverview Park & Zoo, and economic development activities, the City will add positions in 2025. Bringing services in-house is a substantial factor in the 16.89% increase in staffing over the 2024 levels. The impact of the positions transferred in, as well as the requested full-time and contract positions, is largely mitigated by water revenues, the reduction in Peterborough and the Kawarthas Economic Development funding, Municipal Accommodation Tax, and recoveries from capital.

The Draft 2025 Budget includes $411 million in operating expenses, with $185.9 million from property taxes and the remainder funded by other revenues such as grants from other governments, user fees, and service charges.

On the capital side, the Draft 2025 Budget includes $147.4 million for 174 projects such as the Transit Garage Replacement, renovations for police stations, major infrastructure work on Brealey Drive between Lansdowne and Sherbrooke streets, updating and replacing equipment at the Wastewater Treatment Plant, and various road projects.

The City started the 2025 Budget process in March 2024 with community consultation, including a survey and public meetings that were held through March and April. Council held General Committee meetings in June to review information and consider input from the community. Council considered detailed breakdowns of budget implications for services and capital projects before recommending guidelines for preparing the Draft 2025 Budget.

Upcoming public meetings on the Draft 2025 Budget

• Public meeting, brief presentation and opportunity to ask questions, 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., Thursday, November 7, 2024, in the multi-purpose room, Healthy Planet Arena, 911 Monaghan Rd.
• General Committee meeting, presentations from invited local boards and agencies, no public delegations, starting at 3 p.m., Tuesday, November 12, at City Hall, 500 George St. N.
• Informal drop-in opportunity (no presentation), 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday, November 12, in the main foyer, at City Hall, 500 George St. N.
• General Committee meeting, registered delegations presenting to Council, starting at 6 p.m., Tuesday, November 12, at City Hall, 500 George St. N.
• General Committee review, discussion and debate on the Draft 2025 Budget, no public delegations, scheduled for 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., November 18 and 19, 2024, at City Hall, 500 George St. N.
• Mayor tables the Mayor’s 2025 Budget for the City of Peterborough, anticipated adoption of the budget, registered delegations can present to Council, Monday, December 9, 2024.

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An information report on early information and assumptions about the 2025 budget impacts, which will be refined as the budget process continues and more information becomes available, was presented to City Council.

On June 11 and 27, 2024, staff made presentations to General Committee about the 2025 preliminary budget information of each department. The purpose of these presentations was to inform members of Council about the issues the City is facing for the 2025 budget and the impacts these issues will have on the All-Inclusive Rate increase and property tax requirement. At the end of those presentations, Council decided to revisit the presentations and a 2025 draft budget guideline in the August Council meeting cycle.

The preliminary estimates at this stage of the 2025 draft budget process reflect that to maintain the Status Quo levels of service in 2025 would require an increase to the All-Inclusive Rate of 8.44%. To fund the identified Incremental Items would require an additional increase of 1.84%, for a total increase of 10.28%.

These items are based on early information and assumptions about the 2025 budget requirements and impacts which will be refined as the budget process continues and more information becomes available.

Under the Strong Mayor Powers legislation, staff receive direction about the budget from the Mayor. At this time, the Mayor advises that he is contemplating not exercising his delegated authority in this context and would prefer Council reach a consensus about a guideline increase for the 2025 budget. Should Council determine a guideline for the 2025 draft budget, the recommendation would be made to the Mayor, requesting that he take it into consideration in providing direction to staff about the preparation of the budget.

With the many significant and competing demands on the 2025 budget, it is important that the Levels of Service remain the focus as the key means to reduce the property tax requirement and the 2025 budget.

The Draft 2025 Budget as developed by City staff is expected to be presented to Council at its meeting on November 4, 2024, which will be followed by three public meetings to hear feedback from residents before Council deliberates on the Draft 2025 Budget during two meetings on November 18 and 19. The Mayor’s 2025 Budget is expected to be adopted on December 9, 2024.

The 2025 Budget process started in March 2024. The City has held two consultation meetings, one with a presentation followed by an opportunity to speak with budget team members and another that was an informal drop-in meeting for conversations with the budget team. A budget survey was open from March 28 to April 26, which generated 220 responses.

In-person budget consultation meetings were held on April 22 (presentation and opportunity for questions and answers) and April 26 (informal, drop-in session for conversations with the finance team) with about 50 people attending the two sessions.

An online consultation project page is available on the City’s online community engagement portal, Connect Peterborough, with almost 800 visits to the site so far.

A survey on the 2025 Budget was open from March 28 to April 26 with 220 responses submitted.

The annual budget survey is one way the City engages with residents alongside other consultation opportunities, including public meetings and interactions between the community and Council and City staff through in-person conversations, phone calls and emails. Input from the community engagement is considered with other budget inputs such as legislated requirements and financial pressures.

The budget survey is a consultation tool – a way for residents to provide their opinions and comments for Council’s consideration. To reduce barriers and to encourage participation in the survey, registration was not required to submit a response to the budget survey. It is not a scientific sample survey that is statistically defensible. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the population. The survey should be considered as a feedback tool that assists the conversations around budget priorities.

Survey participants were asked how much they value various municipal service groups using a scale of very important, important, moderately important, slightly important and not important. Results showed that across all categories respondents find municipal services to be important, with the following categories receiving the highest number of Very important responses (previous year’s response in brackets).

1. Sewers, water, stormwater management (3)
2. Enabling affordable housing (1)
3. Managing tax dollars (6)
4. Fire prevention, police, paramedics (5)
5. Providing and maintaining parks and green spaces (7)

When asked to rank a list of issues, the average rankings placed the options in the following order (previous year’s response in brackets):

1. Housing/accommodations (1)
2. Physician recruitment (5)
3. Social issues (2)
4. Cost of living (4)
5. Health/public health (3)
6. Infrastructure/transportation (10)
7. Economy/jobs/economic issues (7)
8. Health and vitality of the downtown (8)
9. Environment/climate change/sustainability (6)
10. Crime/criminal activity (11)
11. Governance and transparency (12)
12. Provision of recreation facilities (13)
13. Arts, culture and heritage (9)

Participants were asked to consider some of the broad tools that the City has available for balancing its budget, as required by law. They could select multiple options (previous year’s response in brackets).

• Introduce new user fees for some City services that currently have no fees – 48.6% (49.2%)
• Increase user fees for City services that currently have fees – 50.4% (48.5%)
• Increase property taxes – 34.1% (40.4%)
• Reduce service levels – 29.1% (34.6%)

Respondents indicated what they think the property tax change should be in 2025 based on their expectation for infrastructure and service levels. Based on the information available at the time, assumptions were made on what each option meant in terms of increasing, maintaining, or decreasing service levels to help inform the selection by participants.

• 1% to 3.9% increase – Will require reductions in services and infrastructure investments when accounting for inflationary increases and legislated requirements – 20.2% of responses chose this option
• 4% increase – Generally maintain existing levels of service, keeping pace with inflationary increases and legislated requirements – 19.7%
• 4.1% to 5% increase – Increase investments in infrastructure/services – 19.7%
• Other (please specify) – 17%
• Greater than 5% - Greater investments in infrastructure/services – 10.6%
• No property tax increase – Substantial reduction in services and infrastructure maintenance – 7.8%
• Decrease property taxes – Drastically reduce services and investments in infrastructure – 5%

Outside of the specific questions in the survey, the survey included several opportunities for respondents to provide other comments on the budget. Examples of provided comments include:

• Raise property taxes and fix the roads
• Praise for cycling infrastructure, consider adding more cycling trails including along Lansdowne Street
• Request for an indoor city-operated field house and more outdoor sport facilities
• Property tax levels
• Staffing levels and pay rates
• Fix the roads
• High crime rate
• Spend less on social programs
• Invest in affordable housing
• Add and improve baseball diamonds in the City
• Comments related to Bonnerworth Park project
• Invest in arts and social services
• Spend more money on infrastructure as the city grows