With Orillia forecasting a 6.94 per cent tax hike in its 2025 budget, a group of frustrated residents descended on city hall Monday to urge them to rein in costs.
“With all due respect, we can do without a lot of the excess, and we could certainly help you with looking over that budget,” said Cathy Kerr, who spoke during the meeting’s open public forum session. “I read it. I spent a lot of time over it. I’m not sure you folks did.”
The group of four residents questioned spending on climate change – calling out previous council moves to fund a transit electrification study, when, they pointed out, electric transit fared poorly recently in Edmonton – as well as “overpriced projects,” funding hikes to the County of Simcoe and OPP, and more.
“The property tax is rising by 7 per cent; we’re told this is due to budget increases, notably OPP and Simcoe County services – big problem,” said Anne Crawford. “Those who pay the taxes for the services are a fraction of those who need or use them. The majority of those who rely on social services contribute very little, if at all, to municipal taxes.”
Of the proposed 6.94 per cent tax increase, 5.04 per cent is due to external service contract hikes from the County of Simcoe and OPP, with 1.9 per cent of the hike coming from the city.
“Passing the budget as it is would prove that you have succumbed to the pressures of the county and the province to (take) the hard earned money of this municipality,” Crawford said.
“Imagine all the good we could do in Orillia if this council led by example, severed existing contracts, stopped signing new ones with NGOs, and instead sourced our operations and capital contracts through local nonprofit groups and municipally-based companies," said Crawford.
The city’s contracts with the county and the OPP are valued at $21.8 million, or 21 per cent of the city’s levy-based expenditure, with the 2025 increase coming in at close to $3.7 million. The city has “very limited control” over these increases, notes the city’s draft budget report.
“There's 3 per cent from the county, roughly 2 per cent from OPP, so that gets us to 5 per cent before we even get out of the barn,” said Mayor Don McIsaac after Monday’s council meeting.
However, Trevor Wilcox, the county's general manager of corporate performance, said the percentage cited by the mayor is incorrect.
“In reviewing the article, and as presented at Orillia council (Monday), the county felt it was important to clarify that the county’s portion of the City of Orillia budget contributes 1.79 per cent of the impact within the Orillia budget, not 3 percent," said Wilcox in an email to OrilliaMatters.
The mayor went on to say that "another 1.9 from the city gets us to 6.94 – that's a big number. People don't get those kinds of salary increases and wage increases, so we have to deal with that.”
McIsaac expressed some hope the county’s levy impact could be lowered, noting their budget has not been finalized yet.
“The county budget’s not finalized, and typically it comes down a little bit, so we're hopeful there,” he said. “We've got a number of other ideas that we think we can look at this week to try reducing them, as well.”
On Monday, McIsaac and Coun. Jay Fallis highlighted the county’s service contract increased 13.9 per cent for the city, where the average Simcoe County municipality is forecasted to see a 4 per cent hike.
“We've made some points to the county – Coun. Fallis and I were there with Coun. (Janet-Lynne) Durnford a few weeks ago,” McIsaac said. “The overall county budget’s increased less than 4 per cent when our number’s up almost 13 per cent, so we need to understand that in terms of what services are driving that.”
City staff say they have worked to find efficiencies in city services to lower its own levy increase to 1.9 of the draft 6.94 per cent tax hike, but the mayor hopes to find ways to continue meeting council priorities – such as housing, infrastructure, helping the community’s vulnerable, and more.
“Council priorities are things we're just not going to try to negotiate because we've set those. We held hands and figured this is what we're elected on,” McIsaac said. “These are the things we need to get to, so we need to make sure we keep those in place and I think there are ways to get there.”
However, the mayor said he hopes to find ways to reduce the tax levy increase before budget deliberations are through.
“The goal is to reduce it where we can, while sticking with the priorities, and making sure that we don't decrement the levels of service,” he said.
The projected 6.9 per cent tax hike is more than triple the 2024 tax hike of 1.73 per cent, and more than double the 2023 tax hike of 2.79 per cent, and translates to a $92 tax increase per $100,000 of assessment value in 2025.
Following the budget overview presented on Monday, operating budget deliberations are scheduled for Nov. 5 and 6 at 9 a.m., while the focus shifts to the capital budget on Nov. 12 and 13, with ratification scheduled for Dec. 9 at 1 p.m.
The full draft budget package may be found on the City of Orillia website.
