City of Hamilton staff released the latest draft of the municipality’s tax-supported budget, which would see a residential property tax increase of 5.5 per cent this year.
If the 5.5 per cent tax increase holds, that would mean that the average property owner would have to pay an extra $293 this year.
Technically, the tax levy is actually increasing by 7.0 per cent, but 1.5 per cent of that is covered by taxes on other sectors such as industry and commercial facilities.
The “Draft Staff-Proposed 2026 Tax Budget” builds on information provided in the “Fall 2025 Budget Outlook” and Hamilton Mayor Andrea Horwath’s Budget Directive.
Despite the proposed 5.5 per cent tax increase, Hamilton Mayor Andrea Horwath claims that the draft budget is in line with her previous directive to staff to keep the increase at 4.25 per cent.
Horwath now says that funding requests determined by external boards and agencies, such as the Hamilton Police Service, Hamilton Public Library, and Board of Health, do not count towards her 4.25 per cent directive.
A City of Hamilton press release states that 1.2 percentage points of the 5.5 per cent increase are attributed to funding increases for those boards and agencies, including a $15.2 million increase in police funding.
The rest of the tax increase is due to staffing costs, transit upgrades, infrastructure projects, other emergency services, municipally-operated long-term care homes, housing supports, cyber recovery, and other city services.
The city adds that another 1.2 percentage points are related to the capital budget, which includes maintenance and improvements to city assets and infrastructure.
Overall, the staff-proposed net tax levy is $1.33 billion, which represents a $86.5 million increase compared to 2025.
The approved net tax levy in 2022, before this term of Council, was $993.5 million, meaning that, if the 2026 budget is approved as-is, the net tax levy will have increased by 33.9 per cent in just four years.
Making up a large portion of the tax increases, City of Hamilton employee-related costs were approved at $914.8 million in 2022, whereas 2026 costs are proposed at $1.12 billion.
That means that employee-related costs have increased by 22.3 per cent in just four years.
Residential property tax increases under Mayor Andrea Horwath have been 5.85 per cent in 2023, 5.79 per cent in 2024, and 5.6 per cent in 2025.
Tax increases under Hamilton’s previous mayor, Fred Eisenberger, were 2.5 per cent in 2019, 2.9 per cent in 2020, 1.9 per cent in 2021, and 2.8 per cent in 2022.
It should be noted that the tax increase could go down further as budget deliberations continue.
Since the staff-proposed budget has been released, Horwath is expected to release her own Proposed Tax Budget this week.
Public delegations on the budget will then start on Monday, Jan. 19, followed by a staff overview of Horwath’s Proposed Tax Budget on Friday, Jan. 23.
Tuesday, Jan. 27, to Friday, Jan. 30, will be Staff Departmental Budget Presentations.
Deliberations on the budget, called “Amendment Days,” will be held on Friday, Feb. 6, and Monday, Feb. 9.
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.
