The number crunching is not complete, but Barrie city councillors gave initial approval on Wednesday night to a 2025 tax-supported base budget for city operations and the infrastructure investment fund with gross expenditures of $342.6 million and a net property tax levy requirement of $197.8 million.
This represents no increase in property taxes for city operations.
City council is slated to give final approval at its Dec. 11 meeting.
There are more than 60 services the city is responsible for including parks and recreation, transit, roads and other infrastructure, water treatment, snow clearing, garbage collection, and fire fighting services.
The $6.4 million infrastructure investment fund (IIF) comes with a two per cent tax increase for 2025. The IIF portion of the annual tax capital reserve contribution was first approved in the 2015 budget to address the significant backlog of infrastructure renewal work, and at the time council directed an annual increase to the reserve representing a one per cent tax increase for the typical residential taxpayer. As part of the 2023 budget, council hiked the IIF levy increase to two per cent for 2024 and 2025.
As part of his Strong Mayor's Budget, Mayor Alex Nuttall recommended that the two per cent increase for the IIF be continued in the 2026 budget.
"Council directed staff to use the additional one per cent of the levy increase to fund stormwater capital infrastructure renewal work which resulted in the establishment of the tax-funded stormwater capital reserve," according to the city's website. "Based on historical costs, the City of Barrie owns approximately $2 billion in tax-supported infrastructure such as roads, sidewalks, stormwater, buildings, and equipment. However, the current dollar value of this tax-supported
infrastructure is considerably higher, at approximately $6 billion in replacement costs."
Ratepayers will be tapped for more money as the cost of water and wastewater services in 2025 are estimated to be $420 and $615 respectively for a combined cost of $1,035 ($941 in 2024). This is based for a typical home that consumes 180 cubic metres annually. The increase is 4.4 per cent more than last year.
The number crunching is far from over as city councillors will get the budgets of its service partners early in the new year such as Barrie Police Service, Barrie Public Library and the County of Simcoe.
The police budget contains a $3.9 million increase for next year, up 5.79 per cent for a total of $71.43 million.
The mayor justified holding the line on city operational expenses based on the financial conditions of the day.
"It is a very, very difficult time for many, many families," Nuttall stated. "I think that we've been able to strike a really strong balance this year (2025) where we're continuing with that zero per cent on the (city operations."
The mayor noted the city was going ahead with a robust infrastructure plan.
"We're funding that plan and will work with all of our service partners in the next couple of months to finalize their budgets. But certainly the budget time is a stressful time."
The total operating and capital budgets are expected to be approved by city councillors on Jan. 29, 2025.
As part of the budget process, a phone survey was commissioned by the city in October, by Oraclepoll Research, of 1,000 Barrie residents 18 or or older.
Survey results:
