HALDIMAND—Haldimand’s residential property owners can expect a 4.43% increase to their property taxes as the County unveiled its last of three annual budgets, the 2024 Tax Supported Operating Budget.
This year’s overall budget comes with a price tag of $86,097,640 to Haldimand property owners, an increase of $5,791,790 over last year.
When the latest Council term began, an overall annual increase goal of 3% a year was established, with Haldimand’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Mark Merritt noting, “On doing that, we did recognize that … we probably wouldn’t meet that target over the first couple of years.… This is the second consecutive year that we’re over 3%…. This is a trend across the province.”
Merritt said it’s more than just inflation that’s driving this upward trend: “Property taxes are a major source of revenue, and they’re unable to keep pace with these increases.”
Haldimand County recently issued support to an Association of Municipalities of Ontario request that the provincial government conduct a social and economic prosperity review to improve the Province’s support of municipalities during these challenging times. For a breakdown on Council’s discussion of that issue, turn to page 7.
The operating budget covers a wide variety of day-to-day operational expenses, including emergency services, winter control, parks and recreation, and policing for residents and businesses.
“It includes our staffing and facility operating costs, revenues from user fees, and administrative costs such as insurance and legal expenses,” added County CAO Cathy Case.
She called this year’s budget a ‘keep the lights on’ effort.
“Knowing the economic climate and recognizing the challenges many of our community members are experiencing individually, staff were encouraged to bring forward only absolutely necessary increases…. There is really nothing left to remove from this budget without significantly impacting existing service levels,” said Case, highlighting staffing requests that are not budgeted as part of cost reduction efforts.
Case said that staff laboured to hit a balance between the current economic climate and the community’s needs.
“The focus is always on the County’s strategic objectives of growing our economy, maintaining our healthy communities, and providing efficient local government,” she said. “The budget presented to Council today was one of the most challenging budgets Haldimand has seen in years, clearly indicative of the economic times being experienced across the province.”
Case said that 1% of the increase is attributable to the County’s capital budget expenses, while 3.92% is directly related to economic and cost of living increases in the County’s base budget.
“Almost half of that is directly attributable to the curbside collection contract increase that was approved recently by Council, while the remaining increase is associated with salary and benefit, and other inflationary increases,” said Case.
New initiatives in this budget represent another 2.26% increase: “Just over half of that is associated with a non-union compensation market review results implementation, in line with a recommendation passed by Council in December. The other 1% is made up of staffing requests, most of which relate to positions that were approved in a previous budget as temporary and are now hitting the levy as they become permanent,” she explained.
The actual increase was set to be a whopping 7.21% altogether, but an increase in Haldimand’s assessed population growth for the year brought it down to 4.43%.
“It’s very important to note that without this, the 2024 budget story for Haldimand County would be very different,” said Case.
Overall, the increase will work out to an extra $13.14 a month for the average resident, or an overall annual increase from $3,560 in 2023 to $3,718 per residential household in 2024 with a property assessment of $281,920.
Case provided a high-level glance at the five categories that make up the heart of the budget.
Healthy communities: e.g. physician recruitment strategy, increased direct care hours at Grandview Lodge, rural water quality program, community paramedic program, and the introduction of an invasive species program.
Technology and innovation: “You’ll see the introduction of a small innovation fund, staffing initiatives in the IT area, and an increase to our cyber security training.”
Community and customer service: “Cementing the Council-approved resident satisfaction survey into the budget, administrative assistant proposals to address internal customer service, a business retention position will become permanent, and an increase to the budget of the community beautification program.”
Workforce recruitment and retention: “Market review implementation for the non-union group for the first time in 15 years, projected cost-of-living increases for all County staff.”
Climate change & emergency response: “An increase to our forestry operation budget, and $200,000 was reallocated from our court security budget to our climate change and storm damage account that was recently created to address unanticipated storm damage associated with our changing weather patterns.”
The residential class is set to see the largest percentage hike this year, with Haldimand’s agricultural property owners set to absorb a 3.43% increase, while commercial property owners’ rates will rise by 2.66%, multi-residential rates by 3.65%, and industrial rates by 2.91%.
Councillor Rob Shirton asked about using the County’s Legacy Fund to bring down the increase: “I know we have a policy about what we can or can’t take out.… I’d be wrong not to ask…. Is this not a good year to maybe dip into that, and use some of those dollars that have made great gains over the last four years?”
Merritt noted the legacy policy focuses on major capital projects benefitting the whole County, but it allows up to $350,000 for operating costs.
“We used it in the first year of the policy and then we removed it because it artificially reduces the levy impacts. The challenge of using that type of funding source or any contingency type of source for that matter is that it comes back next year,” explained Merritt. “We always try to avoid one-time use of any type of reserve funding.… It’s not something staff would recommend.”
Mayor Shelley Ann Bentley asked how future MPAC assessments might impact overall tax rate increases: “An average home is listed at (about $280,000). I don’t see that. If they come back with a new MPAC assessment, it’s really going to affect our taxpayers.”
Merritt replied, “The Province is committing to do a consultation with municipalities about the challenge of not having an up-to-date assessment…. We know they’re going to increase. The real challenge of the re-assessment is that it doesn’t generate extra revenue, what it does is shift the burden…. If the average assessment went up by 30% and yours went up by 60%, it’s going to shift the burden to different classes of homeowners.”
For a full breakdown of Haldimand’s 2024 Tax Supported Operating Budget, go to haldimandcounty.ca, select ‘Government > Council > Meetings and Agendas’, and then select the agenda item under February 29.
