Easy come, easy go, property tax time has finally arrived in Barrie.
After weeks of dickering, council gave unanimous final approval tonight (March 8) to the city's 2023 operating and capital budgets, including a 2.89 per cent property tax hike for Barrie homeowners.
On the typical Barrie home assessed at $365,040, that increase equals $134 more this year — bringing its total taxes from $4,612 last year to $4,746 in 2023.
Mayor Alex Nuttall said the budget process was a difficult one for this council, which was elected last October.
“It’s a lot easier to smile about it today than it was probably a month ago,” he said. “(It’s) a budget that holds the line on city operations, invests heavily in infrastructure, delivers social housing and a greater police presence, and is the lowest budget passed in the area.”
Barrie’s property tax increase was first reduced from 3.95 per cent by cutting the cost of maintaining city services from a 0.88 per cent property tax increase to zero.
The 2.89 per cent property tax increase breaks down to a net one per cent increase to the dedicated infrastructure renewal fund (DIRF), which helps pay for the replacement and renewal of Barrie’s roads, pipes, buildings, and bridges.
The remaining 1.89 per cent increase this year is what the city will pay its service partners — Barrie police, County of Simcoe, Barrie Public Library, and conservation authorities.
Council approved several cuts to county funding Wednesday night in the areas of long-term care, children and community services, social housing, paramedic services, Ontario Works, and county capital projects.
“For the tax operating budget, the overall net impact is a reduction of $289,992 — $551,946 was reduced from the net levy but $261,954 was added back,” said Craig Millar, the city’s chief financial officer. “The capital adjustments are reflecting Simcoe County’s approved budget.”
Police spending is historically the largest portion of Barrie’s annual operating budget, and this year it’s 22.1 per cent. It was 21.8 per cent last year and 22.2 per cent in 2021.
The Barrie police budget for 2023 asks for 7.28 per cent more, or a $4.29-million increase in city funding. It’s pegged at $63.24 million, an increase from $58.95 million last year.
Police are getting four more civilian employees this year and five new sworn officers, bringing those totals to 125 and 250 respectively. Barrie police has been at 245 officers since 2020. The five new officers will be on front-line duty, while the four new civilian employees comprise two in human resources, one in information technology and another in records.
Salaries, benefits and overtime make up $56.54 million of this year’s police budget. Of that total, 75 per cent is salaries, 24 per cent is benefits and one per cent is for overtime. That’s a 3.5 per cent increase in salaries and 1.7 per cent more for benefits.
But the police budget was approved somewhat reluctantly by councillors.
Coun. Clare Riepma said police need to move from enforcement to getting at the root of the problems which cause crime, and he doesn’t see that in this police budget.
“I’d prefer to see the police spend more of their time and money on the social service part of it,” he said. “That is where we need to put our focus.”
“I need to see results with this budget,” said Deputy Mayor Robert Thomson, who also sits on the police services board. “If we don’t see results, next year’s budget is going to be a challenge for the police.”
Nuttall supported the police budget in part because it hires five new officers.
“We are seeing five new police officers hired here and I think that that’s something that will bring us up to our full complement that we have been aiming for, for a number of years,” he said.
“We do need more boots on the ground, especially in the downtown core,” said Coun. Craig Nixon, who represents this area.”It’s a critical situation.”
Barrie resident Michael Speers spoke against police spending at Wednesday night’s council meeting.
“This police budget request by Barrie police is ridiculous and approving it would be a dereliction of your duty as members of council,” he said. “I say this because your consent would, in essence, be telling the police that this exorbitant request is a legitimate request and such a decision fundamentally abandons the values I believe people in this city should expect the representatives to hold.
“It’s putting the police ahead of the regular, everyday citizens of Barrie,” Speers added. “It’s time to say 'try again police'.”
This year’s police spending was approved with no more discussion from councillors.
Council also saved money by reducing the city’s grant to 2022 levels for the Barrie Public Library. Its budgets, including for the new Holly Community Branch, asked for a 2.84 per cent increase in the city’s grant, to about $9.6 million from approximately $9.37 million last year, or $265,065 more.
Taking $160,000 from development charges reserves lowered the portion of the grant from city property taxes to $9.44 million.
But council got rid of the increase Wednesday night.
“We’re in tough times right now and have to makes tough decisions,” said Coun. Gary Harvey. “We’re not talking a huge amount of money. Their reserves are very healthy, so they can easily do this.”
Harvey identified $3.4 million in library reserves that could make up the difference.
The County of Simcoe supplies land ambulances and paramedics, health and emergency services, Ontario Works, children’s services, social housing, long-term care (LTC), seniors services and community services, which includes homelessness, to the city.
The county had requested another $1.7 million, or 6.57 per cent more, for Barrie’s share of its 2023 operating and capital costs. The total net amount of tax-supported city funding was to increase to $27.4 million from $25.7 million last year before council made the funding reductions Wednesday.
“I’ve been beating the drum for value for dollars with the county for years,” said Coun. Sergio Morales.
The 2023 operating and capital budgets include a number of service improvements.
Council has created a new capital project for traffic-calming measures — speed bumps, radar board, etc. — with one-time funding of $75,000, or $7,500 per Barrie ward, to be funded from the tax capital reserve.
This year’s capital budget totals $360 million, although $271 million of that figure is requested spending. There is $89 million in approved capital spending and it includes road resurfacing and flood mitigation, along with the study and design of the upgrades and capacity of the wastewater treatment facility.
There’s $21.3 million to relocate the existing administrative, laboratory and garage functions at the wastewater treatment facility, $21 million to redevelop the existing Operations Centre and $5.6 million for the new Barrie Fire and Emergency Service Station No. 6. It is planned for the southwest corner of Prince William Way and Mapleview Drive, and is to be operational in the spring of 2024. Construction will start mid-2023, and it will take eight to 10 months to build.
This year’s operating budget also includes pre-approval for 20 new Barrie firefighters so the recruitment process for these positions can begin in late 2023, in preparation for the 2024 opening of Fire Station No. 6. There’s no budget impact this year, but the pre-approval would result in pressure on the 2024 tax levy of about 0.68 per cent or $2.1 million.
Barrie’s city staff totals 987, full- and part-time permanent employees, which includes 187 in the Barrie Fire and Emergency Service, and 32 part-time permanent employees.
This year’s operating budget was to originally hire 22 additional city employees, or conversions of temporary positions to full-time staff. Instead, it’s to be 13 full-time staff and 6.4 casual, part-time employees. The full-time staff are office services assistant and structural engineer, both in the building services department, a utility supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) specialist, an engineering contractor administrator, four roads operations staff for Barrie’s growth land, an emergency vehicle technician, two facilities project managers, a technology analyst and a disability management specialist.
The casual, part-time positions include planning staff for Ontario Bill 109 review, cleaning staff for waterfront washrooms and recreation staff for re-opening recreation centres on weekends in the summer.
As part of the budget, council also approved a Barrie Transit cash fare increase, to $3.50 from $3.25, as of April 1, 2023 — except for seniors, which will remain at a $3 fare.
Barrie’s annual budget sets service levels, along with the taxes and fees to pay for city services, as well as water and sewer (wastewater) rates. Education taxes are also included.
On a typical household that consumes 180 cubic metres of water annually, the bill was $374.25 last year. With this year’s 3.7 per cent increase, which is worth $13.75, the 2023 water bill will be $388.
Last year’s sewer bill of $532.46 is slated to increase by 5.0 per cent, which is $26.54, for a 2023 total wastewater bill of $559 — again on that typical household consuming 180 cubic metres of water annually.
So the combined water/sewer cost this year is $947, on the typical home, or a 4.4 per cent increase compared to 2022 levels.
Council has approved finance staff developing a separate DIRF reserve and that contributions be increased to two per cent for each of 2023, 2024, and 2025, and that 50 per cent of the DIRF collected be used for stormwater capital infrastructure.
To offset the DIRF increase this year, $1.9 million will be taken from the city’s reinvestment reserve and $1.1 million from the tax rate stabilization reserve to be used once, to fund city tax-funded operations. That brings DIRF back to one per cent on the property tax bill this year.
Last year’s property tax increase was 2.94 per cent, which on a typical Barrie home assessed at $362,740 equalled an increase of almost $132, bringing property taxes on that house to $4,612 last year. That 2.94 per cent increase was a blended number, for municipal and education taxes, which almost never increase, and included 0.75 per cent more for the DIRF.
Last year’s budget also included increases to water and wastewater (sewer) rates — 2.4 per cent or $8.75 more for water, an additional 3.03 per cent or $15.61 for sewer, for a typical household that consumes 180 cubic metres of water annually. So the yearly cost of Barrie’s water and sewer services in 2022, on this typical household, was estimated at $374 and $531 respectively, for a combined cost of $905. This was $24.36 or 2.77 per cent more for both services compared to 2021 levels.
Ontario municipalities receive a very small portion of total taxes by Canadians when sales taxes, income taxes and property taxes are considered — only nine cents of every tax dollar raised, while the province and Ottawa get 44 cents and 47 cents, respectively.
In Barrie’s case, just more than half of those nine cents is available for city services and the rest goes to its service partners and education.
Property taxes are calculated based on the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation’s (MPAC) assessed value. MPAC last did a province-wide assessment in 2016, so these property values are significantly lower than actual 2023 market values.
The 2023 tax-supported base operating budget has total gross expenditures of $408.1 million and a net property tax levy requirement of $283.1 million for city services and Barrie’s service partners.
