Whitby to debate millions of dollars in changes to Strong Mayor 2025-2027 budget
Published November 28, 2024 at 1:35 pm
The Town of Whitby council is set to debate millions of dollars worth of changes to its first budget to be designed using Strong Mayor Powers.
Last week, Mayor Elizabeth Roy proposed sweeping changes to a draft budget developed by town staff. While the province granted Roy (and many other mayors) these powers more than 18 months ago, she initially pledged not to use them.
Roy has since reasoned she had to flex these new powers to minimize an expected tax increase from the proposed 5.7 per cent to 4.5 per cent in 2025. This is also the town’s multi-year budget, containing the plan until 2027, and the first that will be approved before the fiscal year.
According to Roy, this new multi-year approach “ensures we continue to prioritize implementing action items in Whitby’s Community Strategic Plan.” The town developed this plan of 62 key priorities with feedback from thousands of residents through an online survey and several in-person events.
With this feedback, town staff created a draft budget to cover 2025 to 2027. They also outlined numerous issues adding pressure to the budget, including:
- staffing for a new fire station and Whitby Sports Complex
- negotiated wage settlements and market adjustments to attract and retain staff
- inflationary pressures
- citizen engagement
- updating Whitby’s aging infrastructure
- the Community Strategic Plan action items
On infrastructure in particular, there’s a shortfall of $10.8 million in annual funding for repairs and replacements, the budget found. The draft includes $1.45 million in 2025, $1.85 million in 2025, and $2.6 million in 2027 dedicated to fixing up town infrastructure to make up for that shortfall.
Councillor Maleeha Shahid noted this would add about $99 to the average resident’s property tax bill. Town feedback indicates residents feel this is too much to add to their already high bills. Whitby is also the only town in Durham Region to manage its garbage collection, adding to the necessary tax bill.
Of note, while Whitby has a comparable tax rate to neighbouring communities, it also has higher-than-average housing valuations. As a result, Whitby residents, on average, pay higher annual property tax bills.
Shahid filed a motion to remove a little more than $500,000 from the infrastructure section of the budget so the town can reduce the tax hike to $89.
Councillor Rhonda Mulcahy has also proposed changes to the council’s business expense budget. Roy’s draft includes $13,695 per councillor per year for councillors and $17,890 per year for the mayor.
Mulcahey has proposed lowering the expense budget for regional councillors by $22,500 across the three years. The town’s regional councillors include Roy, Mulcahy and Shahid, as well as Christopher Leahy and Steve Yamada.
Leahy and Yamada have proposed heavy budget cuts of their own. The controversial longtime allies put forward three separate motions which together would take $2.1 million out of the 2025 Asset Management fund. The overall proposed 2025 fund is only $1.45 million.
Likewise, the pair put forward another three motions each to slash the 2026 and 2027 Asset Management funds by similar amounts. The pair has also proposed the town not “phase out” income from Elexicon Energy dividends and cap each annual budget increase at 3.99 per cent.
While the above proposals would lower the budget expenses, the third on the docket would raise them a bit. Councillor Victoria Bozinovski has proposed adding $53,000 to 2025 specifically to support the update of “gateway features, decorative iron and masonry fences” on private and Regional property.
The proposed changes will be debated in a Special Council Meeting on Nov. 28. The full motions are available here.