Peterborough Finance and Corporate Support Commissioner, Richard Freymond, presented the Staff Recommended 2025 Draft Budget to City Councillors at a General Committee Meeting Monday night.

Press were issued copies of the Draft Budget earlier that morning, with its contents embargoed until the start of the 5:30 PM committee meeting. 

In August, Council mandated the all-inclusive tax rate increase for the year be set at a rate of 5%, despite preliminary estimates from City Staff indicating that an 8.42% all-inclusive rate would be required to maintain status-quo operations.

The 8.42% came both from what Freymond called a “robust” portion for the City’s capital program of about 2.28%, as well as a number of items which were originally presented in the 2024 budget, but were deferred or otherwise not resolved in that budget year.

One such item was a proposed tax ratio reduction which would have shifted the tax burden to the commercial/industrial sector, alleviating about 1.5% of the residential taxpayer’s all-inclusive tax rate.

However, the proposal required approval from the Ontario Minister of Finance, who—despite City Staff writing to him three times through Mayor Jeff Leal—rejected the proposal “in as many words,” saying that it “doesn’t really align with the priorities of the province at this time.”

Part of this was dealt with in 2024 through council’s decision to use money held in reserve, though as Freymond told members of the press at a Monday morning press conference, “when we pull monies from reserve, we don't really solve the issues, we defer the issues.”

“It is unsustainable to think that we could do that year over year,” he told council on Monday night.

In spite of Council’s mandate to provide a 5% budget, the Staff Recommended 2025 budget presented on Monday night outlines a financial plan contingent on a 7.80% all-inclusive tax rate.

Freymond says this rate is owed both to unanticipated costs associated with the City’s overhauled waste collection program after councillors recently voted to provide additional service to multi-unit residential buildings, as well as to create a risk buffer within the City’s existing operating budget.

Freymond directed Councillors to Appendix B of Report FCSFS24-036, which lists “millions of dollars in service reductions” to discretionary municipal expenses that could be cut to reduce the all-inclusive tax rate from 7.8% to 5.0%.

Potential service cuts listed include discontinuing City funding to the Art Gallery of Peterborough (AGP), the elimination of the Trinity drop-in program, the closure of directly operated daycare programs, discontinuing sidewalk snow removal, and—my personal favourite—not running the Centennial fountain in Little Lake.

In addition to potential cuts, the Appendix “also included the implications,” said Freymond. “If you’re going to take [a line item] out, what does it actually mean for the residents of Peterborough?”

While each associated line item comes with potential associated savings, a number of the Staff comments on their implications contain words to the effect of “negative community response.”

According to Freymond, the 2.8% reduction in the all-inclusive rate required to reach 5% would also be a $5.9 million tangible loss in tax-supported spending.

“It sounds to me, Mr. Freymond, to get to 5% Council will have absolutely no discretionary spending. Is that what I’m hearing?” Councillor Gary Baldwin asked Freymond during a Q&A session.

“Generally speaking,” Freymond replied, “if Council wants to get to 5%, all your discretionary spending—everywhere that you spend money that you do not have to spend money—you need to eliminate it.”

Another strain pushing the budget above the 5% target is the increased demands of Outside Agencies—specifically the Peterborough Police Service and Peterborough County & City Paramedics, both of whom “returned with budget forecasts that exceeded the City Staff estimate,” said Freymond.

The Police—who City Staff had allotted a 3% increase to in the 2025 draft budget—are asking for an 8.8% increase to their budget over 2024.

The Police and Paramedic’s budgetary asks were not accommodated in City Staff’s preliminary budget, and thus represent an additional 1.19% all-inclusive rate, even in a 5% all-inclusive budget—resulting in a tax rate closer to 6.2%.

Peterborough Mayor, Jeff Leal, defended the Police budget demand in his closing remarks to council, saying that “most people equate community safety with public safety, and public safety should invest in; in the men and women that put on the uniform.”

Unlike the other two External Agencies, Peterborough Public Health has yet to submit their budgetary ask for 2025.

The Draft Budget also sees a healthy Capital Budget of $147.7 million, which Freymond calls a “growth-related capital plan.”

He cited the City’s continued growth and the commensurate infrastructure demands as necessity of such, and stressed that the City has “used all available capital financing.”

The final item of interest Freymond presented to Council is the changes to the Budget approval process itself as a consequence of Leal’s “Strong Mayor” powers, which he received in August of last year.

Leal’s reception of Strong Mayor Powers has changed the way in which the City handles the presentation of the municipal budget, and the timeline on which it is approved.

The Strong Mayor legislation stipulates that the Head of Council is required to present a budget to Council by February 1st, 2025.

It’s for this reason that the Draft Budget is specifically a “Staff Recommended” budget, Freymond stressed. Rather than giving feedback directly to City Staff to re-tailor the budget, Councillors are effectively providing feedback to Leal, who will present the budget as his own when council has finished deliberating in order to comply with Provincial legislation.

Council will hold detailed budget deliberations on November 18th and 19th, and Freymond said he hopes that the Mayor will accept and present the final budget by December 9th.

There is, however, also the possibility of deliberations extending past that point under the “Strong Mayor” legislation, something which Councillor Keith Riel alluded to, saying he is “not married to that date” if the budget does not make its 5% target.

City Staff will host a public meeting on the Draft Budget at Healthy Planet Arena (911 Monaghan Rd.) on Thursday, November 7th at 7:30 PM. There will also be an informal drop-in at 5:00 PM on November 12th, ahead of next week’s General Committee meeting.

The 2025 Draft Budget Book can be read in full here.

This is a developing story. Arthur will continue to post updates and a more comprehensive breakdown of the 2025 Draft Budget as we are afforded time to read and parse it in full. This thing is 420 (lol) pages long. Bear with us.

Another City of Peterborough innovation this budget season is the dynamic budget visualization tool OpenBook, available through the city’s website, which lets citizens see exactly how lines on the budget break down and compare to future projections.

While not as good as, say, a journalist willing to put all this in context, it’s a really helpful tool for budgetheads and those just interested in having a poke around to see where the City’s putting their tax money.