By Tessa Swanton, Bruce Peninsula Press
At the March 10th Municipality of Northern Bruce Peninsula Council meeting, Council adopted the 2025 Municipal Budget. The March 10th Budget Presentation within Treasurer Report No. TR 25-07 states, “The 2025 Budget represents an increase of $928,958 over the 2024 levy. This is a 10.95% increase in the tax levy. This represents an 8.09% increase in the tax rate when factoring in the assessment increase.”
Further, “NBP is responsible for collecting taxes on behalf of the County and School Boards. The Municipal portion of the tax bill supports local municipal services such as road maintenance, recreation, parks, fire services, building and by-law enforcement. The municipal increase is 8.09% or $40.92 on an assessment of $100,000. The County portion of the tax bill supports County services such as long-term care homes, housing, ambulance, and social services. The County had a rate increase of 4.87% or $24.43 on an assessment of $100,000. The school board portion of the tax bill supports the four different school boards within the County of Bruce. The province held the education tax rate increase at 0%.” The overall tax rate increase (Municipal, County and School Board) is 5.63% or $65.35 per $100,000 assessment.
Fifty percent of all incoming funds to the Municipality is from property taxes, while thirty percent is from user fees and other sources, and twenty percent from grants and subsidies.
Operating Budget
Municipal budgets contain two parts: operating and capital budgets. The operating budget funds daily activities of the municipality, such as insurance costs, employee salaries and wages, heating and cooling, software licensing, boot allowance and many other operating expenses totalling a projected $13.3 million dollars for NBP in 2025.
Capital Budget and Transfer to Reserves
The second portion of the municipal budget is the capital budget which pays for all substantial investments or the replacement of important assets, like facility improvements, new fire trucks, and road and bridge repairs.
A report from the Treasurer presented at the February 24 Special Council (Budget) meeting says, “This budget proposes to use $4,610,000 of reserves to fund capital projects with $1,292,000 being contributed back to reserves. The reserve balance at the end of 2023 was $18,248,000 and the projected balance at the end of 2025 will be $13,420,000.”
Mayor McIver said that he is “concerned about the amount of money being taken out of reserves and what’s being put back in.” Inflation is impacting both municipalities and ratepayers, causing a dilemma for Council – how does the Municipality maintain a respectable level of service without placing added financial burden onto taxpayers during a time of economic uncertainty? Councillor Laurie (Smokey) Golden said, “you have to take into consideration of where people really are at in their day to day lives, and it just seems like more and more is being downloaded onto the actual landowner, that’s [what] the government seems to be going, don’t have a choice if we’re going to maintain what we have, a lot of municipalities are in that situation.”
Municipal departments are extracting funds from the NBP Capital Reserve as departmental budgets are depleting. The nearly $5 million dollars extracted from reserves has inflicted anxiety, prompting Council to increase the contribution to reserves by approximately 4.5% on the levy or $380,250. The March 10th Budget presentation from the Treasurer states, “Council has recognized the importance of contributing an additional amount to reserves on an annual basis: to ensure that funds are available for capital investments, to enhance financial stability, to prepare for unexpected expenses, to facilitate long-term planning, to help manage emergencies, infrastructure maintenance, and future development projects without requiring significant increases in taxation.”
Some sizeable capital expenditures planned for 2025 include $1.2 million for road resurfacing, $2.935 million for road reconstruction, $500,000 for a fire tanker truck replacement, and $237,000 for roadside maintenance.
Council will consider multi-year budgeting and formal discussions with Parks Canada requesting a financial contribution to the Municipality to assist with capital costs.
