Council passes 2025 budget with 3.9% tax hike
Ottawa city councillors squeeze in last-minute changes to support food banks, parks
Ottawa city council has passed a budget that holds the property tax increase to 3.9 per cent while scrounging up enough extra money to improve parks and boost funding for food banks.
It passed 22 to three, with Mayor Mark Sutcliffe saying it balanced affordability with investment. Except for transit, the result was similar to the draft budget city staff tabled in November, which committed funding to priorities like roads and sidewalks while hiring more police, firefighters and bylaw officers.
"I think we are making a lot of historic investments in this budget," Sutcliffe told reporters after the meeting. "This is not a budget where we're cutting back, where we're scrimping and saving. This is a budget where we have established some very clear priorities."
In a budget worth $5 billion in operating and $1.7 billion in capital funding, the last-minute changes councillors proposed and debated during Wednesday's vote were miniscule by comparison.
By far the largest sum, about $5.9 million, will fund a new plan to fill the deficit at OC Transpo, one that falls less heavily on seniors and delays fare hikes for students. That plan is described in more detail here.
But the price tag for all other changes to last month's draft comes in at a grand total of just $400,000.
Funding for food banks, parks
Council funded them by drawing on a pot of savings in the city's fuel hedging program, which is intended to reduce the risk of sudden moves in the price of diesel for city vehicles.
Chief financial officer Cyril Rogers said it wasn't an accounting trick, but came because oil prices dropped since the draft budget was tabled and the city was able to get more advantageous contracts.
"As opposed to $1.44, we're now able to lock in $1.40, so that's where all that savings is coming from," he said.
The fuel savings totalled $1.9 million. The city will dole out most of that money to transit, and the rest to a hodgepodge of councillor priorities.
That includes a $200,000 boost to funding for about three dozen food security organizations, far less than they've previously asked for as they cope with overwhelming demand. Nonetheless, Ottawa Food Bank CEO Rachael Wilson welcomed the new funding.
"We hope that this additional funding leads way to the $5 million amount that we would ideally like the city to invest in emergency bridge funding," she said in a statement to CBC.
Another $150,000 in new funding will go to a fund for upgrading park amenities. Recreation and facilities general manager Dan Chenier explained that it will go to capital projects like asphalt pads in ice rinks and tennis courts.
Finally, an extra $50,000 for washrooms will pay for more porta-potties, better cleaning and extended opening hours.
3 councillors vote against budget
While those three new funding commitments got unanimous support, the overall budget earned the opposition of three councillors: College ward Coun. Laine Johnson, Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper and Knoxdale-Merivale Coun. Sean Devine.
They argued that affordability is about more than holding tax hikes to 3.9 per cent, which equates to $168 in added costs for the typical property taxpayer.
Leiper said skimping on investment now will mean higher taxes later, while Johnson said her residents can't afford poor public services.
"Can anyone afford to lose their job because the bus didn't come for a third time this week? Can drivers afford the repairs because their car bottomed out on a pothole?" she asked. "I don't think this city is broke, but I think we risk breaking it."
Compared to the scale those needs, she views the tiny investments up for debate on Wednesday as little better than a distraction.
"If the role of municipal government is primarily to keep things affordable, why aren't our residents happy with us? I think it's because they can see we're making choices that are eroding those services we depend on. They can see the increased debt. They can see the deferrals. Those are the smoke and mirrors of politicians," Johnson said.
"We patch. We patch. We patch. We get by and we end up shifting really small amounts of money around so we don't have those harder conversations."
Though he didn't vote against the budget, Orleans East-Cumberland Coun. Matt Luloff criticized the process. He saw a budget that suffered from little input from councillors until the last moment. He said city staff should have recognized from the get-go that an earlier proposal of hiking senior fares 120 per cent was a "non-starter."
"If we're going to present budgets and policies without input from elected officials and then change them at the last minute based on public outrage, why are we even here?" he said.
"I'm pleased we landed where we did today on transit. However, I do not appreciate the practice of putting non-starter and dramatic changes in the window in order to whip up the public into a frenzy as a tactic to turn a moderate increase into a win."
Sutcliffe said the budget was responsive to residents' demands, with investments that were months or years in the making.
In his view, it ended in a meeting with lots of discussion but little confrontation, as motions passed smoothly leading up to a nearly unanimous vote.
"So, I think the process worked," the mayor said.
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