Burlington Staff Present 2025 Financial Needs & Multi-Year Forecast to Council Members
At our Committee of the Whole meeting this week, City staff presented Council members with their 2025 financial needs and multi-year forecast and asked us to consider its contents when preparing and reviewing the 2025 Proposed Budget. Staff are predicting a total tax increase of 5.5%, of which the City's portion would be 4.5%. The total tax increase would be equivalent to $50.36 per $100,000 of residential current value assessment (CVA).
My Take
The 2025 financial forecast from City staff provides an early look at the potential 2025 Budget that gives the community several months to share their views. What is even better is the forecast is more detailed than we’ve have received in the past, giving a specific breakdown of what residents will get and the pressures the City of Burlington is facing.
The initial draft from staff presents a total tax increase of 5.5% — that's 4.5% on the City portion of the tax bill, plus Region services adding another 1%, and no change to education.
There is also a forecast showing future years, and a gradual reduction in overall taxes as we get through the current inflationary period and catch up to our pressures for infrastructure and services.
We’ve heard the community that reading a 700+ page budget book that is dense with numbers is a challenge. So, we are working on some changes to how we present the budget to enhance the ability of the community to provide their feedback to us —including short summaries of each service by revenue, cost and performance measures and the value residents get from that service.
We are also looking at ways to enhance community engagement, with a number of planned sessions, including:
Telephone and in-person town halls;
Our Food for Feedback event; and
A dedicated webpage on GetInvolvedBurlington.ca and a Community Panel.
We are also open to further suggestions for how you would like to share your thoughts, whether by email, survey, or in-person engagement. There will be many more opportunities to share your views on the budget before the Council vote, planned for sometime in November/December 2024.
This budget will be focused on delivering the maximum value per dollar for the community, providing for today and planning for the future.
To read copies of the staff report and related appendix, as well as view a copy of staff's presentation for more details, please see the links below:
Staff report: F-25-24 2025 Financial Forecast.pdf
Appendix: F-25-24 Appendix A Financial needs and multi year forecast.pdf
Staff presentation: F-25-24 staff presentation 2025 Financial Forecast.pdf