The budgetary increase always comes in high before councillors have a chance to sharpen their pencils and pick away at the number to bring it down.
This year in no different, with the finance department providing an initial glimpse at a 3.52 per cent hike before elected officials are able to whittle it down.
After tonight's council meeting, Mayor Jeff Lehman urged city residents not to get too excited about the initial number.
"Whenever that first number gets out there, I know a lot of people can have sticker shock," he said. "It is only the starting point."
Councillors will now be bombarded with a mountain of information, followed by debating aspects of the budget in December in an effort to reduce the increase.
"Typically, we're able to bring it down," Lehman said. "Our capacity to do that in some years is very limited, and in other years we've been able to make a more substantial difference.
"This was just the first look tonight and it certainly won't be where we end up," he added.
Lehman said people also need to be aware of the approximately $2 million the city will be taking on from provincial downloading, as well as reduction in grants for both city police and the County of Simcoe.
"The reality is we have to fill those holes, or we have to cut services," the mayor said. "The budget is saying don't cut services, fill the holes. That is a choice that council can make, but those are some pretty essentially services: police services, social housing, land ambulance and otherwise. I suspect if there are reductions, they may come from elsewhere in the budget, but we'll see.
"Council hasn't even started to digest it yet."
Craig Millar, the city's finance director, presented a budget overview to councillors Monday evening at Barrie City Hall.
Some of the key capital projects include the Harvie Road crossing over Highway 400, upgrades and capacity expansion at the wastewater treatment plant along the city's lakeshore, Bell Farm Road and McKay Road expansion, road resurfacing, Dunlop Street corridor improvements, as well as Mapleview Drive East expansion and new trunk watermains.
For city and its service partners, which include Simcoe County and Barrie police, under the proposed changes, the tax levy increase is proposed at just under $8.6 million, which represents a 1.87 per cent hike.
The city is also looking at placing another $2.5 million into the infrastructure renewal fund, which represents an additional one per cent. Coupled with the impact of the provincial budget, another $1.6 million will also add 0.65 per cent.
All told, the tax-rate impact sits at 3.52 per cent before councillors have had a chance to get down to brass tacks.
Water rates could also go up 3.47 per cent, while wastewater would see a 3.83 per cent hike. Parking rates would remain the same.
The city's 2020 capital plan sits at $199 million, which includes $54 million in previously approved spending, as well as $145 million in new requests.
With Barrie expected to grow to around 210,000 residents by 2031, the city is "investing heavily in growth-related projects over the next several years," said Millar, noting the municipality will spend more than $1 billion in the next half-decade or so in capital-related infrastructure.
Although those investments will benefit the city, "the city is facing significant pressures when it comes to balancing the costs of these growth-related projects with available resources," Millar said.
While much of the spending centres around growth infrastructure, Millar reminded council that there also needs to be money earmarked for renewal projects. The treasurer said it's important to balance that spending and be "disciplined."
"The 2020 budget outlines the city's plan to fund our growing community," Millar said. "The plan is somewhat flexible, but we do have to stay close to the course."
There's also $2 million being set aside as part of the growth strategy to support growth.
"The residents that will be benefitting from those costs aren't here yet, so as a way to smooth that out, we're deferring that budget pressure by drawing upon the city's existing reserves," said Millar, who noted it's being recommended that the city takes $1 million from each of the stabilization and community benefits reserves.
"The concept is that, over the next four to five years, we'll kind of wean ourselves off this reliance on these reserves," he added.
So what happens next?
The city's service partners — which include the county, city police and the library board — will present to council on Nov. 25.
The proposed budget will undergo a question-and-answer period in the coming weeks, followed by deliberations on Dec. 2. It's expected to come up for council consideration on Dec. 9.
For more on the city budget, click here.
