City Council Preview – What’s on the Agenda for the Meeting on November 7?

It’s everybody’s favourite day of the year, City budget release day! Get your calculators and pencils warmed up because the 2024-2027 multiyear budget has finally been released and it’s ready to be parsed by everyone whether you have a specific project you’re concerned about, or are just more generally concerned about the City’s bottom line. Get ready to see what money matters matter the most for the next four years!

NOTE #1: There will be no delegations for this meeting. There will be a special delegation night for members of the public to comment on the budget on Wednesday November 15 at 6 pm.

NOTE #2: In addition to meeting in-person, this meeting will also be live-streamed on the City of Guelph’s website here.

NOTE #3: This meeting will take place at the special time of 9 am.

Guelph’s 2024-2027 Multi-Year Budget – First things first, the total gross budget for the City of Guelph is $556,280,013, which represents a 10.32 per cent increase over 2023. Broken down by all the parts that’s a 4.97 per cent increase to the levy plus 1.98 per cent for the local boards and shared services, and 3.37 per cent for housing, homelessness and the hospital levy. On top of that there’s the $208.67 million capital budget.

But wait! This is the multiyear budget, which means that we have the numbers for not just next year, but the three years after that. The City of Guelph’s budget will increase to $688,808,424 by 2027 with a 6.41 per cent increase in 2025, a 6.06 per cent increase in 2026, and a 6.67 per cent for 2027. The capital budget also goes up over the next four years with $234.1 million in 2025, $338.4 million in 2026 and $482.4 million in 2027.

Now, it’s important to point out that a 10.32 per cent increase in the levy, is not necessarily a 10.32 per cent increase to your property tax bill. The budget presentation does include an impact to the average median residential homeowner (meaning a residential single-family detached home with an assessed value of $407,000 in 2023), and for 2024 that’s $37.66 per month followed by $37.77 per month in 2025, $38.18 per month in 2026, and $31.92 per month in 2027.

With a 10.32 per cent increase who may think that the City has thrown everything but the kitchen sink into the budget, but there are a number of programs and projects that are being deferred off the four-year budget plan in order to make things more affordable, but that does come with a warning that, “Removal of positions related service improvements and change management principles delays the ability to advance change management practices internally and increase talent retention.”

You can see the full list of deferral and delays here, but to pull some choice items there’s the postponement of a number of new full-time equivalency positions, some replacements and upgrades to trails and rec facilities, changes to the transit schedule and the introduction of new routes, some 100 per cent renewable projects, road widening on Victoria and York, reconstruction in the Exhibition Park area, and some stormwater investments.

After presentation day for the budget, the next date on the calendar is Wednesday November 15, which is delegation night for all the budget items. Decision day for the budget is Wednesday November 29 and the meeting will start at 9 am, and after that there’s a two-week period where the mayor will be able to veto the budget decision, and three quarters of council will be able to override.