Greater Sudbury city council’s first multi-year budget process capped off this afternoon with a 5.9-per-cent tax levy increase approved for 2024, and a 7.3-per-cent increase slated for 2025.
The annual increases average out to 6.6 per cent.
The 2024 tax levy increase is Greater Sudbury’s highest since 2008 (when six per cent was recorded), and the 2025 jump is the greatest since 2004 (7.5 per cent).
Although the 7.3-per-cent tax levy jump projected for 2025 looms over the city’s 20-year average annual increase of approximately four per cent, it’s unlikely to remain in place that high when 2025 hits.
So described Ward 9 Coun. Deb McIntosh, who chaired the city’s finance and administration committee which debated and passed the city’s 2024/25 operating budgets, and 2024-27 capital budgets this afternoon.
“I know that number isn't going to be that much next year,” she told Sudbury.com of the 7.3-per-cent tax levy hike in 2025 following today’s meeting. “We’re going to be reviewing this budget again next fall, so there are a lot of things that can happen in a year.”
As for this year’s 5.9-per-cent tax levy jump, Mayor Paul Lefebvre noted during his closing remarks that 3.5 per cent of it is earmarked for infrastructure, including a 1.5-per-cent special capital levy the city’s elected officials agreed to tack onto the budget.
This investment, McIntosh said, is “historic.”
“It’s a big deal,” she added. “For us to approve a special capital levy for four years to be able to deliver that capital budget, it’s a huge thing for us to have undertaken.”
The 1.5-per-cent special levy will collect approximately $5 million in 2024, with each subsequent year’s amount compounded by annual increases of 1.5 per cent. After five years, it’s projected to bring in $86 million, and $375 million if maintained for 10 years.
The four-year tax-supported capital budget city council approved today totals $681.3 million, averaging just greater than $170 million annually.
(Tax-supported capital budgets figures exclude water/wastewater capital projects, whose capital budgets are covered by user fees and total $195.9 million for 2024-27.)
The annual budget of $170 million toward tax-supported capital projects is a significant boost from previous years, which included approximately $115 million in both 2022 and 2023, and $88.9 million in 2021.
Funding infrastructure is all about filling the city’s current annual spending gap of approximately $130 million, McIntosh said, citing this as one of the top goals people tend to bring up in conversation with the city’s elected officials.
Today’s budget meeting was the third day of deliberations, and today’s easy highlight was city council's decision to boost public transit hours by approximately 11,000 annually.
Effective Sept. 1, 2024, the change carries a net levy impact of $176,562 in 2024 and $545,577 in 2025.
With the city slated to hit record-setting public transit use this year, city transit services director Brendan Adair delivered a presentation in support of the boost in service hours.
The jump in transit hours “responds to ridership increases which are placing significant pressure on main transit routes, thus negatively impacting the efficient operation of the entire transit system,” according to the business case.
This year, GOVA Transit is forecast to host approximately 178,000 hours of service, which is down from the 2019 total of 182,256. The proposed 11,000-hour jump would bring service up to what it would have been if the pandemic hadn’t hit, Adair said, noting a boost in service hours came at mid-year in 2019, which pandemic-era conditions forced them to whittle down.
The city’s public transit ridership in 2019 was 4,605,343, and Adair is projecting as many as 5.2 million rides by the time 2023 comes to a close.
When it came time to vote on the public transit service level boost of 11,000 hours, Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc, Ward 5 Coun. Mike Parent and Ward 4 Coun. Pauline Fortin raised their hands in opposition, leaving the amendment to pass by a wide margin.
A series of user-fee increases were also baked into the city’s base budget, including seven-per-cent increases to public transit fare, which would translate into a single-ride adult fare increase from the current $3.50 to $3.75.
Ward 1 Coun. Mark Signoretti introduced a successful amendment to increase transit fares by an additional 25 cents, to $4. Ward 8 Coun. Al Sizer tacked on a friendly amendment for the additional cost jump not to affect bus pass and six-ride card rates for students, seniors, disability pensioners and youths.
The city’s elected officials were near-unanimous in supporting this amendment, which helped cut the tax rate by $555,000 annually, with only Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc and Ward 12 Coun. Joscelyne Landry-Altmann voting against it.
Various other amendments were made to the city’s 2024/25 budget during this year’s three budget meetings and preliminary meetings, including the following highlights:
- The city’s status-quo base budget was cut by $10.5 million by November in order to reach city council’s direction for their starting-point budget to carry a tax levy jump no greater than 4.7 per cent. Inflationary pressures were cited as the key reason for status-quo service to jump in cost by such a degree. A 1.5-per-cent special capital levy for additional infrastructure investment was added to this base budget, and city council members altered it further with a series of amendments during this month’s three budget meetings, including the adoption of several business cases resulting in the final 5.9 per cent increase in 2024.
- Water/wastewater rates are slated to increase by 4.8 per cent in both 2024 and 2025.
- City council unanimously greenlit a police budget with a 2024/25 total increase of 15 per cent, which includes the hiring of 26 additional staff members.
- An amendment by Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc for the city to fund The Spot, the city’s supervised consumption site, for an additional six months was rejected, with only Ward 12 Coun. Joscelyne Landry-Altmann supporting the motion. As such, the harm-reduction site remains on track to close by the end of January.
- The city shifted $300,000 from homelessness funding to help bring down the tax levy. Although Ward 6 Coun. René Lapierre tabled an amendment for this funding to remain within homelessness, a vote of 6-4 struck it down.
- Free transit service will be afforded to seniors on Tuesdays in June, at a 2024 levy impact of $58,661.
- Four additional full-time firefighters were greenlit for hire, which is projected to help with the department’s established overreliance on overtime (approximately $2.4 million was spent on overtime in 2022 against a budget of $1 million). Eight were requested.
- Hiring two additional emergency vehicle technicians to help prepare the city’s 22 ambulances, six paramedic response units and eight community paramedic vehicles for daily deployment.
- Greater Sudbury Fire Services was cleared to hire two additional training officers to help the department meet new training requirements mandated by the province.
- Municipal law enforcement officers will continue to serve the downtown transit terminal on a permanent basis, which Adair credits as making the place feel safer and reducing the number of police calls for service by approximately 30 per cent. There are two municipal law enforcement officers at the downtown transit station at all times.
- The city will hire an additional commander for paramedic services.
- The emergency shelter programs will be boosted slightly, including a Cedar Place boost from 26 beds to 28 and extending daytime services at The Safe Harbour House. These programs are funded by senior levels of government, whose funding plan extends for the next two years. They will be re-evaluated in 2026, when funding cuts are anticipated to bring them back to pre-pandemic levels.
- Infrastructure improvements to the Lasalle/Elisabella industrial area were approved to help accommodate development, including a total capital investment of $19.4 million.
- A road safety program will find proceeds from the city’s automated speed traps (estimated at $313,000 annually) fund road safety efforts such as speed bumps.
- The residential tipping fee holiday be eliminated in the fall, saving the city approximately $66,000 annually. The spring tipping free holiday (free trips to the dump) will remain.
- A proposed 0.5 annual contribution to reserves was removed from the budget.
In a media release following today’s meeting, the city noted that for a homeowner with a property assessed at $350,000, the approved budget means a monthly change of approximately $26.
Although the city’s finance and administration committee of city council approved a 2024-25 operating and 2024-27 capital budget today, which was immediately followed by city council as a whole ratifying their decision, the property tax policy won’t be adopted until April 2024. The property tax policy determines such things as tax ratios to finalize property tax rates.
Ward 3 Coun. Gerry Montpellier did not attend today’s budget meeting, and Ward 2 Coun. Michael Vagnini’s virtual attendance was spotty.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
