Taxpayers in St. Catharines can expect to see the city portion of their tax bill increase by just 1.12% this year.
This after city council approved the 2023 budget last night.
Mayor Matt Siscoe says it won't be that low when the regional budget gets added in, "When we get to the end of all the budgets this year, the regional budget and city budget, and we look at what the total increase is for residents, it's going to wind up being very similar to Guelph, Kingston,Toronto which are all coming in at five or six percent. I think that speaks to coming out of covid there are costs that we didn't have in the past."
Siscoe adds that the increase to the city portion of your tax bill is lower thanks to the uploading of the cost of public transit to the region, "This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and as a municipality we were lucky that it was happening now. When we were coming out of covid, when we were trying to kickstart the recovery for the community, the timing just worked out for us. Because in other budget years we wouldn't be able to make the kind of increases we need to make, in this case we have this opportunity."
$13.5 million will be moving to the regional taxes thanks to the new amalgamated transit plan.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE MAYOR DISCUSS THE BUDGET WITH TIM DENIS