With new provincial legislation, the 2025 proposed draft budget will be introduced using Strong Mayor Powers. This requires mayors to present a draft budget for Council consideration or direct staff to present a draft budget. It is also the second year of Guelph’s 2024-2027 multi-year budget.
While listening to public feedback throughout 2023, and considering the projected nearly ten percent property tax increase for 2025, I issued a Mayoral Direction in February this year that directed staff to establish the 2025 confirmation budget at a property tax impact rate of under four percent. To achieve this goal, it requires the City’s capital and operating portion to be no higher than 2.63 percent, and I’m pleased to inform Guelph residents that this goal has been achieved—saving residents and businesses more of their hard-earned money. I set this goal early in the year to allow for a long runway for staff to follow this direction and realize a more affordable draft budget for our community.
While tough decisions on budgets must always be made, I committed to align it with our Council-approved Future Guelph Strategic Plan. Staff evaluated programs, services, and projects and ranked them against the following criteria:
- investing in new housing and housing-enabling infrastructure
- maintaining our City assets in a state of good repair
- fulfilling the requirements for mandated or legislated projects
- limiting risk to our organization and the broader community
- prioritizing projects and initiatives with significant benefit to the public
- facilitating projects and service enhancements with grant funding
City staff has done a tremendous job analyzing the City budget line-by-line and assigning a rating to each expense. If an expense didn’t rate near the top of the criteria list, an in-depth evaluation determined if it could or should be adjusted, paused, or deferred. This was a painstaking and challenging process, but the resulting property tax impact rate was certainly worth the effort. I’d also like to acknowledge several members of City Council that communicated collaboratively with me throughout the past months as the draft budget was built. This was a team effort by many, which should not go unnoticed or unappreciated.
I call on everyone to engage with us in the weeks ahead. I will be hosting a virtual town hall and holding town hall meetings across the city before the draft budget is finalized on November 27. Additionally, there is a dedicated delegation opportunity to address City Council on November 19. All the details are available at guelph.ca/budget.
Thank you,
Mayor Cam Guthrie