A 4.5 per cent property tax increase will be among the budget scenarios considered by council as part of the city’s 2025 budget – but the mayor warns that scenario could result in “significant” service cuts in New Westminster.
At its Oct. 21 meeting, council considered a motion from Coun. Paul Minhas directing staff, as part of the 2025 budget, to develop at least one budget scenario for council’s consideration that incorporates a property tax increase of no more than 4.5 per cent.
“The last two years, we have seen almost a 15 per cent increase in our taxes,” Minhas said. “With high inflation rates, high cost of goods and everything else, people are struggling in this day and age.”
Minhas said it’s possible property tax increases in New West could reach as high as 30 per cent over the current council’s four-year term.
New Westminster council approved property tax increases of 7.7 per cent in 2024 and 6.4 per cent in 2023.
Coun. Ruby Campbell said “there’s a lot to this process” of developing the budget, including input from residents, businesses and city staff.
“What I'm feeling is this councillor is just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks,” she said.
Campbell said it would be helpful if Minhas could identify some of the items that he would consider cutting from the budget in order to achieve a 4.5 per cent property tax increase. She said that would provide staff with some direction when developing the budget and considering what items to cut.
Coun. Daniel Fontaine said “spaghetti is about all people are going to be able to afford” if they see a property tax increases like they’ve faced in recent years. He said he has the city has “very good professional staff” who could present options for achieving a 4.5 per cent tax increase.
“I support Coun. Minhas’s motion, and I think it's not appropriate for Coun. Minhas to do that work,” he said. “It's appropriate to do what he's done – to bring the motion forward and have staff come back with a scenario. We can debate that when that comes forward.”
Council unanimously supported Minhas’s motion – but several councillors warned that a 4.5 per cent property tax increase would likely result in service cuts.
Coun. Tasha Henderson, who also chairs the New Westminster police board, said the motion was “surprising” given the discussion that occurred at a recent meeting between council and the police board about the New Westminster Police Department’s 2025 draft budget.
“The proposed police budget alone equates to about a three per cent property tax increase,” she noted.
While council has not received specific numbers about the city side of the budget, she suspects it would be impossible to cover all of the non-discretionary costs (such as negotiated collective agreements) with a 1.5 per cent increase. She said the largest line item in the New Westminster Police Department’s discretionary funding in its draft 2025 budget is for the addition of three new sworn police officers.
“I do think that perhaps it's not on the councillor to go through line by line and decide what gets cut, but I think … there has to be some indication to staff on what might be something that they're willing to forgo. So, I’d like to hear that,” she said. “I'll approve this because I think it's worth looking at, but I do think that it will significantly impact the discretionary funding of the police board budget.”
Coun. Nadine Nakagawa agreed it would be helpful for the mover of the motion to give staff some direction on what they might be contemplating, whether it’s cuts to police officers, swimming lessons, tree sales, street paving or something else. She said it’s “not helpful” for staff to make cuts to certain areas of the budget if that’s not what council had envisioned.
“I think that kind of direction towards staff actually would be helpful and would be in line,” she said. “With that said, I think it's fair to ask what this would look like so that the public can have a full idea of what the picture is.”
Coun. Jaimie McEvoy supported the motion, saying council discusses a variety of budget scenarios – and the impacts of those options – as part of each year’s budget.
When developing the 2024 budget, staff presented city council with three potential budget scenarios at a December 2023 meeting:
- Scenario 1 included $12.2 million in service enhancements, which would have resulted in an estimated 5.5 per cent increase to property taxes. This was considered a “baseline” budget that included increases that are contractual or regulatory in nature.
- Scenario 2 built on Scenario 1 and included $20.6 million in service enhancements for items such as the opening of təməsew̓txʷ Aquatic and Community Centre (TACC) and the implementation of a crises response team pilot project. It had an estimated 6.8 per cent increase on property taxes.
- Scenario 3 had an estimated 8.5 per cent increase on property taxes. It included $23 million of service enhancements, including additional investments in TACC, emergency services, human resources and information technology.
At Monday’s meeting, Mayor Patrick Johnstone said he has no problem supporting the motion as it’s consistent with the way the city handles its budget. Given what council knows about collective bargaining agreements it has approved and the draft police department budget, he suspects taxpayers may be “shocked” at what would need to be cut to achieve a 4.5 per cent property tax increase.
Johnstone said Minhas and Fontaine have brought forward a “number of motions” this year which would have impacted the city’s budget. While they weren’t all approved, he said they would have added up to a “significant amount of increased spending” for the city and would have had an impact on property taxes.
“I think that 4.5 per cent is the very low end of what we would be able to do as far as maintaining our current services; I think it might actually result in significant cuts in services,” he said. “But I think it's worthwhile for public to see that. It's really worthwhile to see what it means. And I think it's important for the public to know what the cost of public services are, because, as I always joke, 11 months the year people ask us to do more things and then one month a year they ask us to not raise taxes to pay for them.”
As part of the 2025 budget process, the city conducted a survey in the summer. The next steps in the budget process include a report to council about the survey results and workshops with council.
The original timeline proposed that the proposed 2025 to 2029 financial plan could be considered by the public and council in December 2024 and January 2025.
