By James Matthews
The most recent draft of this year’s Minden Hills capital and operating budget proposes an almost seven per cent spending increase over last year.
The residential tax levy impact on every $100,000 of assessed property value would be $29.32 if the most recent budget had been adopted by council.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ontario government postponed the 2020 municipal property assessment update. Property assessments in Ontario continue to be based on a 2016 valuation. And that puts municipalities in a bind, particularly when it comes to mapping out revenues to cover necessary expenditures.
An outdated valuation of properties, combined with increasing market values, has created growing disparity between the assessed value of a property and its market value.
The typical single-family home in Minden Hills has an assessed value of $223,000. This property will see a $65.39 increase on their municipal tax bill for 2025.
The typical seasonal recreational dwelling has an assessed value of $316,000. This property will have a $92.65 increase in taxes over last year.
Wendelin Lonergan, the township’s finance director, said during council’s Jan. 16 meeting that staff has taken feedback already offered in the budget process and are working through them.
“This is a moving process and we’ll be taking everything and compiling everything and refining further for the Feb. 4 meeting,” she said.
The 2025 municipal operating and capital budget is to be finalized in February.
As it is so far, the spending plan has a proposed municipal service tax increase of about four per cent. That includes 1.5 per cent for capital investment and about one per cent for the OPP service.
Lonergan said the annual cost of policing has increased over 2024 costs by $424,665 to $2,265,991. The township received notice from the Office of Solicitor
General in November that Minden Hills will get $324,509 to lessen the impact of the increase in OPP costs for 2025.
That lowers the tab to $1,941,482 for 2025, which is an overall increase of $100,156 or an about one per cent tax levy increase.
“It is not known at this time what the 2026 impact will be for OPP rate increases,” according to Lonergan’s most recent draft of the proposed budget. “It would be proactive to ensure the Policing Reserve is increased for rate stability. Once the 2024 audit is complete, staff will present a report to address this concern.”
Among capital projects this year is work on the curling rink’s roof.
The roof and insulation are substandard as per an engineering report completed in 2024. Based on that engineering report, staff applied for a provincial grant that may cover either half the costs or as much as 70 per cent of the $515,000 price tag.
If the grant is not successful a review will need to be done to determine how the full $515,000 will be funded.
“If we are not successful at receiving the grant this year, would you want to continue with doing that roof this year if we had to pay 100 per cent of the cost?” Lonergan said. “It’s in the budget, but it’s factored in to come from reserves for our portion is we’re successful in the grant.”
Word about the grant may come by the end of February, she said.
“Do we have a choice on deferring this?” Mayor Bob Carter said. “What’s the status of the roof? We saw what happens to delayed roofs in this building.”
Lonergan said she could return to council with some recommendations from which council could decide a course of action.
“Council would then decide if you wanted to proceed or potentially wait for another grant or do something like debt,” she said. “All those different options with financing.”
“This is a substantial project,” Councillor Tammy McKelvey said and added that the township’s portion of the bill is shown to come from reserve funds.
“I would like to suggest … that we consider putting an actual levy towards this,” McKelvey said.
“I’m waiting to get through the whole budget and then find out what our surplus is,” Carter said. “Then determine what it is that we need to borrow for what projects we need to do.”
The Feb. 4 meeting will provide more of those details.
“It’s a bit premature to add a specific project,” Carter said. “We have to look at all of the projects together and find out what our borrowing needs to be, what has to come from reserves, what levies we need to put in place.”
