With the new year comes a new municipal budget for Bradford — and an increased property tax rate for residents.
Council is scheduled to participate in all-day budget deliberations Tuesday and Wednesday to hammer out the details of what the town needs versus what the town wants, how much that will all cost and what impact that will have on taxes.
A report from Ian Goodfellow, the town’s director of finance and treasurer, explained that in order to maintain the town’s current levels of service the draft “base budget” for 2024 would require a total property tax increase of 3.98 per cent, or an extra $205.55 for the average home.
In Bradford, the province’s Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) assessed the average home at $516,919.
Councillors will be debating the town’s costs as the base budget requires nearly $24.9 million in property taxes and would add new staff positions including: a fire administrative assistant, two youth recreation centre assistants, a part-time customer service representative, a facility operator, a facilities attendants, a senior building inspector and a water supervisor.
However, that could increase further depending on which options councillors choose, and in his report, Goodfellow provides three additional scenarios.
In the first, the total tax rate increase grows to five per cent, adding another $801,687 to the budget and increasing the cost to the average home by $265.88. This includes an additional allowance for the town’s organization review, and more staff including: a communications assistant, a GIS technician, three inclusion support facilitators, a facilities supervisor, an IT analyst, an employee relations specialist at the Bradford West Gwillimbury Public Library and a library custodian.
In the second scenario, the increase grows to six per cent, adding another $720,023 to the budget and increasing the cost to the average home by $316.53. This includes an allowance for the town’s external equity review, additional resources to help maintain town assets like roads and parks, plus more staff including: an emergency management coordinator, a deputy clerk, park students, a revenue clerk, an IT analyst, a creative lab programmer and an arts, culture and events specialist — the last three for the library.
In the third or “all-in” scenario, the increase grows to 7.66 per cent, adding more than $1.2 million to the budget and increasing the cost to the average home by $395.37. This includes additional resources to help maintain town parks as well as more staff, including: a fire prevention officer, a fire administrative assistant, a public work operator, an assistant facilities supervisor, park attendants, park operators and a library summer programmer.
On Dec. 19, council also approved in principal adding three new senior staff positions — deputy chief administrative officer, director of infrastructure services and director of strategic initiatives.
Staff estimated it would cost $713,820 in 2024 to cover salaries and benefits for those three positions.
The total tax rate also includes external factors beyond the town’s budget, like the South Simcoe Police Services budget, County of Simcoe budget, and provincial education tax.
The cost of the police budget to Bradford’s tax rate grew by 3.76 per cent and will cost the average home an extra $26.70.
The 3.70-per-cent increase passed by county council on Nov. 14 will cost the average home an extra $55.24.
The provincial education tax is not expected to increase.
In his report, Goodfellow provides a breakdown of how the total taxes paid by residents would be divided in 2024.
- Bradford — 43 per cent
- County — 28 per cent
- Education — 15 per cent
- Police — 14 per cent
Included in Bradford’s portion, four per cent of the total tax bill goes toward the library and nine per cent is the town’s special capital levy, which is used to fund replacement of infrastructure like roads and sewers as well as to help fund the construction of new facilities like the community hub at 177 Church St. and the future town hall at 125 Simcoe Rd.
While large projects are budgeted over multiple years, for the 2024 budget, the Holland Street revitalization could cost $9.5 million, the second fire hall in Bond Head could cost $6.4 million and expansion of Henderson Park could cost $4.5 million.
While no change is expected to the base charges, the rates for water and wastewater are expected to increase by 3.4 per cent for residential users and 4.2 per cent for commercial users.
This is the first instance of a Bradford budget being implemented under the new strong mayor powers, which the province provided in the fall as part of package deal that allowed the town access to Ontario’s Building Faster Fund, after council committed to meet the province’s housing targets.
Those powers require the mayor to propose the budget for the municipality each year by Feb. 1., but in November, Mayor James Leduc said he has no plans to use the powers.
In order for the town’s budget process to continue as it has in the past, the mayor instead directed staff to draft a budget for presentation to council, and while that serves as the 'mayor’s budget,' it is expected to be subject to the typical debate by council.
