Brampton (Canada) city council unanimously passed the nearly $1.1 billion budget on Wednesday, including a $780 million operating budget and $341 million in capital budget
Brampton (Canada) city council has finalised its 2022 budget with a fourth-straight tax freeze on the city’s portion of the annual tax levy, but residents will still be seeing an increase on their tax bills.
Council unanimously passed the nearly $1.1 billion budget during a special meeting on Wednesday night, including a $780 million operating budget and $341 million in capital budget.
This budget marks the fourth-straight year council has voted for a tax freeze on its portion of property taxes.
The annual property tax levy is divided into three parts including the city, Peel Region and school board portions. Both the city and school board portions will remain the same as last year, with the regional rise of 1.5 per cent resulting in a net increase of 1.5 per cent or nearly $77 for the average household.
The city’s originally proposed budget, released in November, included a 1.3 per cent hike on the city’s portion of the levy, which would have resulted in a net 2.7 per cent increase, but city staff managed to reduce it to zero in the final budget presented to and approved by council.
City staff accomplished another freeze by transferring the outstanding $8.3 million balance left on the city hall South Tower lease from the operating budget to the capital budget. The move resulted in a net 1.7 per cent savings in this year’s budget, but according to Wards 3 and 4 Coun. Martin Medeiros, transferring that obligation from the operations to capital budget essentially turns it into debt.
Council voted to make up the rest of the difference to get to zero by adjusting the transit fuel allocation by more than $3.6 million, resulting in a 0.7 per cent net savings for this upcoming year.
In addition, city staff originally recommended an additional dedicated tax levy in this year’s budget to fund the city’s required contribution for the upcoming Peel Memorial Hospital expansion into a second full-service hospital.
However, council ultimately decided to transfer a little over $40 million in infrastructure reserve funds in addition to nearly $22 million left over from the 2012 Peel Memorial hospital levy to put toward the $125 million required for its part of the local share of the project’s cost.
