This Thursday is decision day for Council as Hamiltonians await final word on how high their taxes will rise. Pictured: Hamilton Mayor Andrea Horwath. Photo Credit: Andrea Horwath/Facebook.
Hamilton City Councillors are set to approve the municipality’s tax-support capital budget this Thursday (Feb. 15) as efforts are still underway to trim what was proposed to be a 7.9 per cent tax increase for residents.
In September 2023, a Budget Outlook presented by city staff predicted that Councillors would have to raise property taxes by 14.2 per cent in order to pay for all of the programs that Council had approved for 2024.
However, since that outlook document staff worked on the proposed 2024 budget and got that number down to a possible tax increase of 7.9 per cent (an increase of $382 for the average household).
City staff say they were able to decrease the residential tax burden from the projected 14.2 per cent to 7.9 per cent by “responsibly utilizing strategic reserves,” screening budget submissions for “redundancies and efficiencies,” and prioritizing new spending “against its ability to advance council-identified priorities.”
The 7.9 per cent residential property tax increase was broken down into three parts by the city.
The first part, responsible for a 4.3 per cent increase in the average residential property tax, is “to deliver vital city services and strategic investments for priority services.”
That number is further broken down, with the 2.7 per cent increase identified as being directly related to city services while the remaining 1.6 per cent ($19.2 million) identified as being for new funding for “housing and homelessness initiatives, including the Housing Sustainability and Investment Roadmap.”
The second part, responsible for a 2.6 per cent increase, is reportedly to “account for the impacts of new provincial legislation that shifts infrastructure costs for new development from developers to city taxpayers.”
The third part, responsible for a one per cent increase, is to provide municipal funding for planned modernization of Juravinski Hospital and St. Joseph Hospital Charlton Campus.
However, Council has already decided not to put the burden for the planned hospital modernization on municipal taxpayers at this time, so the overall tax increase appears to have already been trimmed to 6.9 per cent.
Additionally, Councillors endorsed a motion from Councillor Ted McMeekin (Ward 15 – East Flamborough – Waterdown) to observe a “municipally generated tax cap” of no more than four per cent.
That tax cap only applies to the 4.3 per cent increase in taxes that is deemed “municipally generated,” meaning at least another 0.3 per cent trim to the proposed 7.9 per cent increase.
Thus, the final tax increase approved by Council on Thursday could now be down to 6.6 per cent.
With the Hamilton Police Services Board instructed to review their budget for a second time to find “efficiencies” and with Councillors potentially proposing other changes to the final budget, that increase could be whittled down further.
Either way, this Thursday is decision day for Council as Hamiltonians await final word on how high their taxes will rise.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
