New Westminster is a step closer to approving its 2025 budget.
At its Jan. 13 meeting, council voted 5-2 in favour of having staff report back with a bylaw for the 2025 to 2029 five-year financial plan. The 2025 budget reflects a property tax rate increase of 6. 6 per cent.
Mayor Patrick Johnstone and councillors Ruby Campbell, Tasha Henderson, Jaimie McEvoy, and Nadine Nakagawa supported the staff recommendation, while councillors Daniel Fontaine and Paul Minhas voted in opposition.
Fontaine said a 6.6 per cent tax increase gets the city a step closer to approval of a 23 per cent property tax increase in the past three years. He said that’s on top of increases to utility fees and the continuation of the 3.5 per cent climate action levy.
“Many families are struggling, and 23 per cent is an incredible amount of money to be passing along to ratepayers,” he said.
Fontaine believes the city could have found additional savings in the budget or put aside projects that “weren’t necessarily a priority” to reduce this year’s property tax increase.
“If we continue at this rate … we're looking at, during this term of council, a 30 per cent tax increase,” he said.
(On top of this year’s proposed 6.6 per cent increase, the city approved tax a 6.4 per cent property tax increase in 2023 and a 7.7 per cent increase in 2024 – which works out to 20.7 per cent. Questioned later, Fontaine told the Record the 23 per cent figure he cited refers to the “compounding effective over three years” of tax on top of tax; he said the increases work out to 22 to 23 per cent over three years.)
Other council members, however, argued that a 6.6 per cent property tax increase represents what’s needed to continue offering services supported by community members.
Henderson said staff indicated a 5.5 per cent increase was required to ensure the city could meet collective bargaining, inflation, and other required expenditures. She noted .9 per cent of the remaining 1.1 per cent property tax increase relates to staffing for the New Westminster Police Department.
“The bulk of that is to support the backfill strategy that the police board has been going through in the past few years to increase the number of sworn members we have, so that we have the full contingent available,” she said. “I think we have heard loud and clear from the community that they're interested in supporting that investment.”
According to Henderson, other increases relate to the provision of the Q to Q ferry service, which is “really important” to the Queensborough community and is an investment worth making. She said a 6.6 per cent increase reflects “the bare minimum operational increases that everyone's experiencing right now” – including the city, policing, the Q to Q ferry.
Johnstone thanked staff for their work on this year’s budget.
“No one likes to announce tax increases; that's true. But I know that we did a good job this year in trying to find the savings,” he said. “And staff did an excellent job in trying to find efficiencies and find ways where we can reduce that impact.”
Johnstone said that is evidenced by the fact that two-thirds of this year’s property tax increase relates to “fixed costs” – things that the city cannot reduce. He said that includes a six per cent increase for E-Comm (911) services and a three per cent inflationary increase.
A staff report said the 2025 general fund operating expenses total about $205.3 million, an increase from $188.7 million in 2024. Staff said these expenses provide ongoing municipal services, including police and fire services, parks and recreation services, engineering, planning and development services, library, corporate services, and cultural and community services.
According to Johnstone, almost 80 per cent of residents who took part in an Ipsos survey as part of this year’s budget felt they received good value for their money in the City of New Westminster.
In addition to maintaining existing services, Johnstone said this year’s property tax increase includes funding to hire police officers through the backfill strategy to prevent burnout, the Q to Q ferry, and software updates.
“It’s shocking how much of this is actually software updates related to recent IT issues and security issues that cities and school boards and local governments have been having. This is really important work that I think that the public can understand the reasons why we want to make these investments, or we need to make these investments,” he said. “So, I am in support of this in where it's going and appreciate again, the work that staff do to walk us through this and help find us the best path to making our budget decisions.”
Campbell thanked staff for conducting the “robust public engagement” as part of this year’s budget and thanked community members who provided input on the budget. She said council had asked staff to be mindful of what could be postponed or not be included in this year’s budget.
“And yet, at the same time, we really want to ensure that we provide public services to the community, and also not just public services that are front facing, but public services that are behind the scenes in terms of managing some of the infrastructure needs that we need,” she said. “And when I speak about infrastructure, it's not just facilities, but some of the sewers, pipes, and all the other behind-the-scenes pieces that people need.”
Fontaine said a majority of community members who responded to the Ipsos survey expressed support for tax increase near the rate of inflation. He said a 6.6 per cent increase is “well above” the current rate of inflation.
Capital budget
At the Jan. 13 meeting, council voted 5-2 in support of the 2025 $243.6-million multi-year capital budget. The city anticipates $159.1 million to be spent this year and the remainder to be spent within the next four years.
“The 2025 multi-year capital budget of $243.6 million emphasizes the delivery of important capital projects that support council’s strategic priorities, the climate action Seven Bold Steps, and the city’s core services,” said the report.
The report noted that the Community Charter and the city’s procurement policy require an approved capital budget to be in place before contracts can be awarded or committed.
“Some capital project or program spending may span over multiple years,” said the report. “In order to procure and award contracts, these types of projects may require a commitment of more than one year of the capital budget at the beginning stage. Providing a multiyear budget to these projects will allow the city to be more flexible in responding to global supply chain issues and minimum the impact from inflation (lock in in prices earlier), which will provide better control of the overall cost of the projects.”
Some of the major projects slated for capital funding over the next five years includes: active network transportation plan and greenway upgrades; the Massey Theatre renovation project; West End sewer separation and water mains replacement project; a new electrical substation; and a district energy system project.
Earlier in the budget process, council approved utility fund budgets and rate increases for 2025. These rate increases took effect Jan. 1, 2025: electric – 3.5 per cent; water – 6.0 per cent; sewer – 10 per cent; and solid waste – 12 per cent.
