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Niagara Falls
Thursday, November 7, 2024
Annual budget meetings to kick off on Oct. 10
Coun. Erwin Wiens, who will be on the budget committee along with the rest of council, voiced concerns about the town's spending on legal battles at the Ontario Land Tribunal. FILE

That time of the year is almost here: The town is set to spend this fall nailing down its top financial concerns for 2025 — and how it plans to tighten, or loosen, its purse strings.

Council approved a two-month timeline for proceedings on next year’s municipal budget during its September meeting — the first budget committee meeting will be held Oct. 10 and the last, to finalize the 2025 budget, on Dec. 10.

The budget committee will be made up of all councillors and key staff members.

During minutes approval at the top of the Sept. 24 meeting — three hours before staff presented the budget timeline — financial concerns were already on at least one councillor’s mind.

In sharing his rationale for voting in favour of the four-storey apartment building planned for Mary Street (during the Sept. 11 committee of the whole planning meeting), Coun. Erwin Wiens, who chaired the council meeting, brought up stacking legal fees the town is incurring in its disputes at the Ontario Land Tribunal over contentious development plans.

I look at our legal costs and what we’ve done this year and they’ve skyrocketed,” he said. 

Understand, there’s a cost to all of it, and that cost comes at budget time. We’re just going to go into our budget and you’re going to see our legal bills.”

He also voiced his confidence in planning staff’s general expertise, as confirmed by their recommendations being proven correct at many tribunal hearings and the green light they gave the Mary Street project.

Coun. Gary Burroughs followed up on his comments, noting Wiens has brought up this concern over legal costs “many times,” and how part of the issue comes from council’s stances on proposed developments being in opposition to staff recommendations.

“The cost is great — and some of us believe the cost is worth taking if we’re going to stand by anything in our community.”

In March, council approved a $48.5 million operating budget for 2024 and a property tax hike of 6.75 per cent.

At the time, the rising cost was driven by staff wage increases, five new hirings, insurance fees going up and high legal costs, among a few other causes.

No changes were made to the timeline staff proposed to council on Sept. 24, however, Coun. Sandra O’Connor did raise some concerns to staff about whether they’ll have enough time to properly work on the operating budget.

“I think operations is going to take us longer than two meetings,” she said, also flagging slow progress on the municipal accommodation tax as a financial concern, among other items.

The committee will begin budget proceedings with the capital budget, which dictates the costs of projects and infrastructure, aiming to have a final version after a second discussion on Oct. 30.

As for the operating budget — which dictates the town’s day-to-day revenue and expenses, plus the annual property tax rate — the committee aims to have two meetings on Nov. 7 and 21, before finalizing it on Dec. 5.

At the Dec. 10 meeting, it’ll look at the 2025 budget as a complete package — including water and wastewater user rates, insurance costs and other items — before completing the budget.

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