When Bradford West Gwillimbury council approved the town’s 2023 budget during its March 7 meeting, it capped off a different kind of budget process.
That wasn’t just the faces around the table, as four new councillors were taking part in their first series of budget deliberations, alongside Mayor James Leduc, who sat at the head of the table during the budget process for the first time in his 16-plus year career on council.
This year’s budget was also one that forced the councillors to focus on the priorities they felt were most important to their constituents and spend their tax dollars on those services. Previously, staff would present a budget with enhancements included, allowing councillors to cut. The tax increase to maintain services at a 2022 level was significant enough to present that on its own and let councillors add until they reached a level they were comfortable with.
And that tax increase was going to grow before the end of the meeting. Councillors were told at the outset of deliberations that a static operating budget is “unstable” by Chief Administrative Officer Geoff McKnight. Town staff had delivered “great service with a very lean structure,” he added, but that can’t continue in the face of the changing needs in the growing community.
“There are a great number of needs and priorities across the different service areas of the town for additional resources to meet the needs of a growing community, to match and lineup with the priorities of council,” Ian Goodfellow, Director of Finance/Treasurer, said during the budget meeting. “If all the things were approved, the increase would be just under seven per cent overall.”
The increase wasn’t that significant, but it’ll still be tough for some residents to swallow. The approved budget raises taxes on Bradford West Gwillimbury ratepayers by 5.63 per cent, an extra $275.37 on the average home in the municipality.
Leduc acknowledged the “challenging decisions” council had to make in a news release issued following the February meeting, but Bradford West Gwillimbury isn’t an outlier when it comes to what other municipalities are facing in Ontario, particularly as they exit the COVID-19 pandemic and provincial funding that helped keep taxes low during the past two years disappears.
“We had to play catch up, for sure,” Leduc said. “We went with a couple of zeros in the past, and over the last eight years, our operational costs were -0.21 per cent. You can’t continue that.”
Nor can you expect residents to stomach a more than five per cent rate hike each year, Leduc acknowledged. Deputy Mayor Raj Sandhu echoed that sentiment and pointed to previous budgets that kept the town’s portion of the tax bill in the one-to-two per cent range.
“This year, it’s been tough on every municipality; the budget is 5.63, but I don’t see us doing that every year,” Sandhu said. “The items that were added on, these were, in our mind, services we were providing to our residents. It was something that we heard at the doors. Whether it was the firefighters, whether it was the parking lots, the parks, (the cricket pitch), these were the items we were asked by residents to deliver and we’re delivering on that.”
For every $100 dollars collected in taxes, $41.96 stays in Bradford West Gwillimbury, paying for the operation of municipal services, the town-related cost of capital projects and the overall budget of the public library. With that money, council made decisions to fund projects that fit primarily into the priorities they heard from the electorate and are in the process of codifying in its Strategic Plan: recreation, community safety and employment.
Recently, some members of council took a tour around Bradford West Gwillimbury to highlight some of the projects your tax dollars and contributions from the development community will pay for in 2023.
Lions Building – Lions Park
Council approved a $290,000 upgrade to the Lions Building, which will see the old swimming change rooms converted into a new youth centre for the community. The work in 2023 will capitalize on previous upgrades to the park, including new basketball nets and an outdoor ice rink.
“It’s going to be a youth drop-in centre, as well as the home of our new youth programmer, (as we) make sure we have some great spaces and great activities for our young people,” said Coun Jonathan Scott.
Not that it wasn’t a place where youth have congregated since it was first built more than 40 years ago.
“It’s always been a youth centre. When I was a kid, you’d bike over to lifeguard, and that’s how you’d spend your summers,” Scott said. “I think the trick is that we pay for this building 365 days of the year and now we’re going to be able to use more than it’s (currently) being used…. It’s going to be programmable all year round.”
Luxury Park
Luxury Park and Lions Park are of the same vintage, and both are in need of upgrades. They’re also examples of an outdated method of creating a park.
“It’s the opposite way you build parks now,” Coun. Ben Verkaik said. “Now, you build parks in people’s front yards.”
By the end of the $680,000 renovation, all vestiges of the original Luxury Park, including the basketball courts, baseball diamond and washrooms – closed for decades, but still complete with underground water servicing that could prove beneficial in the future - will join the pavilion and playground equipment as either being replaced or removed entirely.
“We’re going to redo the park,” Leduc said, highlighting an enhanced and accessible entrance to the park of Kulpin Avenue. Coun. Peter Dykie wants to ensure the residents of the neighbourhood have a say in what the park of the future looks like.
“We’re going to show the residents the draft plan that’s coming out (and) we’re looking for input from all the residents,” Dykie said. “There’s a lot of basement apartments in the areas, so people are leaving their cars here overnight. So, I want to get input from the residents about parking, no parking, more entrances.”
Cricket Pitch
A portion of Joe Magani Park on Line 11 will be transformed into a cricket pitch.
The town has agreed to spend $74,000 on a 12-foot by 174-foot wicket to be located in the front yard of the Community Services administration building, located in the park. Last fall, staff admitted the location wasn’t perfect, but it was a good place to start as the town looks to accommodate the needs of a growing and more diverse community.
“Bradford’s a very diverse community, and we’ve always promoted diversity, equity and inclusion,” said Coun. Peter Ferragine. “We do not have any sort of cricket-type area that people can play on.”
Perhaps the best part of this project is that municipal ratepayers aren’t on the hook for it; the cost is covered by the development charges reserve.
“As the town continuously grows, and we get development charges from that growth, that can go toward different facilities we need for a growing municipality,” Ferragine said.
Danube Seniors Centre
The Danube Seniors Centre has been an essential part of the Bradford West Gwillimbury seniors community since the mid-1990s. Prior to that, it was home to the local German Association, hosting community events and special occasions, including one that is particularly important to Verkaik.
“It was a great place to have weddings,” he said. “I had my wedding here back in 1989.”
This year’s budget included $40,000 for three new five-ton air conditioning units and $18,500 to replace the exterior stairs. That’s just the start, Scott said, as Danube Lane will be urbanized to tie the property into the subdivision being constructed on the east side of Green Valley. It’s part of an overall investment in seniors services, centring around a location that isn’t as far removed from the population as it would have been nearly 30 years ago.
“This sort of is pretty central to town now. There’s going to be a subdivision right behind it and right across the street in the next few years as well,” Scott said. “One of the things we’re looking at in our Leisure Services Master Plan is what to do with younger seniors, who are perhaps more active and don’t necessarily want the same things that we typically think of as seniors’ program.”
Library
Just as the growth of Bradford West Gwillimbury has made the Danube Seniors Centre a more central location, the same could be said about the Bradford West Gwillimbury Library and Cultural Centre.
When first proposed as a location, the library would be situated beyond the traditional town boundaries. Now, it’s “the centre of town,” said Coun, Joe Giordano.
A passion project for Giordano was to see $200,000 in development charge reserve money committed to creating a town square in the vacant lands in front of the library, at the corner of Holland Street West and West Park Avenue. The money will help transform the land into a gathering space that can be utilized in all seasons, accommodating vendors, stage performances and various recreational activities.
“This project is a project for everyone that will unify the town and check off so many needs and wants for residents and their families in the area,” Giordano said. “We need this space transformed more now than ever. It will be a great bookend with the town hall property.”
Firefighters
What might have been the biggest contributor to the tax increase in the 2023 budget was muted by some prudent planning.
For years, Bradford West Gwillimbury residents have paid into a special capital levy each year as part of their municipal tax increase. In 2019, a second levy was set up for the construction of a new town hall at 125 Simcoe Rd.
But that project has yet to begin, and rather than saddle residents with an additional 4.2 per cent tax increase to pay for the second full-time fire crew required to properly serve the municipality in advance of a second fire station being built, staff determined that reserve could be used to blunt the increase, bringing it down to 0.4 per cent of the overall 5.63 per cent.
The approved budget brings on 12 new firefighters and one fire training officer in 2023, with another eight firefighters being hired in 2024. As well, this plan allows for the town hall to come online in 2026, with the operating costs of both projects being phased into the municipal budget until 2030, through annual increases of $730,000 until 2029 and $339,000 in 2030.
“That second station will be built in the next two-to-three years for sure, no matter what,” Leduc said. “That’s why we want our compliment now. Get them up-to-speed, trained, and then we’ll be able the house our second fire station with a full complement.”
The second fire station is expected to be in the Bond Head area.
