Peterborough ratepayers who think their municipal tax pain is bad now had best brace themselves.
During the annual Mayor’s Breakfast held Thursday (November 21) at the Peterborough Golf and Country Club and presented by the Peterborough and the Kawarthas Chamber of Commerce, the news wasn’t good for those hoping for tax relief anytime soon.
Quite the opposite, as both Mayor Jeff Leal and the city’s chief administrative officer Jasbir Raina made very clear before an audience of local business leaders.
While the mayor’s address touched on a number of familiar touchpoints and related challenges such as affordable housing, infrastructure, homelessness, and economic development, the subsequent question-and-answer session saw both the mayor and Raina provide their takes on the budgetary pressures the city faces, and what that means not only in the short-term but for the foreseeable future.
“For the past 20 years, the (average) City of Peterborough property tax rate was 3.12 per cent,” said Raina, adding “This is not how smart cities do their business. These were purely band-aid budgets.”
“Two years back when I came (to Peterborough) for my interview, one of the questions asked was ‘What do you think of the city?’ I said ‘You have a pathetic infrastructure. It’s on the verge of decay.’ It’s a reality here. You can’t sustain yourself with 3.12 per cent (tax rate hikes).”
Noting that 90 per cent of city revenue is derived from taxes and user fees, Raina says the remainder is made up of grants provided through the good graces of upper levels of government. While helpful, he said, that funding has remained at the same level for years now while city expenses have risen dramatically and infrastructure projects and other capital project have been put off as a result.
“Our current model is in the ICU. Ontario’s 444 municipalities are crying for the help they need. What we need is a collaboration with the province where we develop a funding plan that is sustainable for the financial stability of the municipalities.”
“A lot of downloading has happened. It started in the early nineties and continued. Coolly, smartly, and stealthily, provincial budget deficits were passed on to the shoulders of municipalities. That has fallen in the laps of taxpayers.”
Noting “It took us 27 years to do repaving of downtown roads,” Raina said “We are at (a) 7.8 (proposed per cent tax increase) because we need it. The time is not far away that there will be a two-digit number.”
The municipal tax discussion at the event was timely, given that on Tuesday evening city council finished two days of deliberations on the city’s draft 2025 budget and its proposed 7.8 per cent property tax hike. Those meetings ended with the proposed tax hike increasing to eight per cent, although city council is aiming to bring it down to seven per cent.
Post-breakfast, Mayor Leal told kawarthaNOW that he and his council colleagues have to look at “the big picture” when presented with a draft budget.
“We’ve got to bring more investment into the city, and expand the businesses that are currently here. When I was given the great privilege of being mayor two years ago, one of the things I looked at was a number of things that were still on the books that needed to be done.”
“Frankly, I was embarrassed by the condition of the streets in downtown Peterborough. I thought ‘If I was going to bring a potential investor here and showed them downtown, and drove over the humps and bumps, what kind of impression would that leave?’ We want to be sure we’re ready for new investment to come and grow our community.”
Another major topic of interest, particularly in a roomful of business leaders and owners, was the future direction of economic development, the responsibility for which the city will assume in January as a result of council’s earlier decision not renew its agreement with Peterborough and the Kawarthas Economic Development (PKED) to provide a suite of services in the city and county.
During his address, Mayor Leal said economic development and employment land availability are “inextricably linked.”
“Residential taxpayers provide 80 per cent of our tax base while industrial-commercial accounts for 20 per cent,” he said, adding “That is an unhealthy ratio and is a big reason why residents have faced some steep tax rate increases over the last few years.”
“We need to dramatically increase the size of our industrial-commercial sector, but we face some well-known challenges. We have 65 square kilometres of (serviceable) land — a number that hasn’t increased in decades. In fruitful discussions with (County) Warden (Bonnie) Clark and neighbouring townships, I made it clear that annexation (of land) is off the table. I listened to them and that is not an option.”
“That’s why I’ve made discussions around collaboration and cross-border servicing such a priority. Peterborough is eager to partner with our neighbours to bring jobs and economic development to the region so we can share mutually from that initiative.”
While he acknowledged during his formal remarks that the clock is ticking fast toward the city’s takeover of economic development activity, Mayor Leal gave no indication of where things are at in terms of who will lead that department.
He later told kawarthaNOW that interviews for the city’s economic development head are now underway, adding that, while it’s not a requirement that the successful applicant live locally, “it would be our druthers” that he or she does — if not in the city, then in the region.
Asked if the head of economic development would be on the job come the first week of January when the city officially takes on responsibility for that area, the mayor said that’s the plan.
“We’re on an accelerated recruiting process. This is probably one of most important hires that the City of Peterborough will make. We want to make sure we get the absolute best candidate.”
Meanwhile, the County of Peterborough, which is also assuming responsibility from PKED for its portion of economic development and tourism, has already hired former PKED president and CEO Rhonda Keenan and former Peterborough and the Kawarthas Chamber of Commerce Sarah Budd to lead the county’s team, and has established a new economic and tourism office in the former Lakefield post office.
For his part, Raina came away thrilled for the opportunity to speak at the Mayor’s Breakfast, which was sponsored by Cogeco, Hydro One, Spotlight Home and Lifestyle, and Pinchin.
“They (breakfast attendees) deserve to hear, from the horse’s mouth, the true realities of what we are facing,” he said. “They should not feel city hall is a castle and information is being hidden and there’s hanky-panky going on.”
Raina added the gathering also presented him with the chance to remind people not to shoot the messenger when it comes to the budget and its related tax increase.
“Our (city staff) job is to tell them ‘Hey, this is the scenario.’ We present well-researched information and council makes decisions for the future, not for the present or to fix the past. How council does that is their arena.”
Referencing Mayor Leal’s earlier stated confirmation of his longer-range goal to see a sports and entertainment complex built in downtown Peterborough to replace the Memorial Centre, Raina said he respected the mayor’s “vision” but once again returned to fiscal policy.
“At the end of the day, where is the money? Who are the partners? It’s a good concept and of course we need it, but where is the money?”
