Property tax hike trimmed to 6.9%

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This article was published 27/01/2025 (314 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Some surplus cash, a couple of opportune housekeeping decisions, and a little financial hand up from the province helped reduce the City of Brandon’s 2025 Budget by several percentage points on Saturday.

City councillors went into the second day of budget deliberations with a proposed budget that called for an 11.7 per cent increase in property taxes, and ended the day having whittled it down to a 6.9 per cent increase in the municipal portion of a resident’s tax bill.

For a single-family residential property assessed at $301,300, that works out to a total of $2,300.88 per year – a reduction of slightly more than $100 from the earlier proposed budget.

“There was good discussion and debate at the table,” Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett told the Sun on Saturday afternoon. “I’m really proud of the council we have, because there’s lots of varying opinions. There’s not really blocks, there’s people who think things through.”

Saturday’s finalized budget will head back to council in a couple of months for ratification.

As expected, council’s deliberations centered around fleet replacement and maintenance costs, and a reduction in new hire costs. Though several councillors around the table brought it up as a major concern, a lengthy afternoon discussion was kicked off by a motion from Coun. Bruce Luebke (Ward 6) who initially called for a $4.5 million reduction in fleet expenditure in the city’s capital plan, and tasked administration with spreading “A1 Priority Equipment purchases over 2026, 2027 and 2028.

As part of the discussion, Coun. Barry Cullen (Ward 3) called for a smaller reduction in fleet expenditure, and suggested that council look to start purchasing buses this year, as a means to better stagger the city fleet lifespans for the benefit of future councils.

“There should be a bus in this (budget). If we’re trying to replace one a year, and get onto some sort of a program over the next little while … I know we’ve invested money in the refurb to make sure our fleet is there, but … I would like to see that reallocated so that at least we can order it,” Cullen said. “We need to get on that list and stay on that list, instead of taking the allocation we have and then we reassign the allocation and lose the place setters for our buses.”

Ultimately council agreed, and carried a motion to reduce the fleet capital plan by $3 million and spread the remaining purchases over the next three years, while also budgeting for the purchase of two new transit buses for this fiscal year, which council was told would cost about $800,000 each at the present time. The cost of procuring buses is expected to rise to well over a million dollars each in coming years.

“Honestly, the transit buses wasn’t on my radar going into the day today, but just in some informal discussions with colleagues during the day, it seemed to be something others were kind of looking at,” Coun. Luebke said following the day’s deliberations. “We were maybe a little unsure of putting it on the table, but I think addressing that, at least to start with, knowing that it’s going to be three or four years before those two buses we order this year are going to be in service, I think sets us up to continue with those purchases — two a year possibly.

“It’s something I feel like most of council agrees with, was maybe staggering those purchases a little bit better than we have in the past.”

Fawcett supported council’s decision, stating that it was important to have a strong fleet of transit buses, particularly when ridership is the highest it has ever been. The plan, he says, is to make the system more user friendly for citizens in the coming years.

“I’m excited about this year, because we’re going to look at that transit plan, and over the next number of years it could substantially change how we get around the city,” Fawcett said.

At the start of the budget meeting on Saturday, the city’s director of finance, Troy Tripp, informed council of an unexpected increase in the surplus funds from the 2024 budget, moving up from the originally forecast $1.7 million to nearly $2 million. About one million had already been accounted for in the 2025 proposed budget, but the extra $900,000 in surplus funds significantly reduced the city’s tax needs.

“The fact that there was $900,000 of surplus that dropped, and that almost drops us two per cent, but as the discussion around the team said … that is money that was paid by the taxpayer. It was intended to be used, and for whatever reasons it wasn’t,” Fawcett said. “So it goes back in to reduce.”

Fawcett also once again credited a million-dollar grant for the Western Manitoba Centennial Auditorium announced Friday by the provincial government in helping to reduce the city’s budget, and a significant correction to the expected operations budget for the Maple Leaf Soccer Complex, which dropped by $250,000 between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning in the proposed budget document — a $250,000 decrease.

“There was a fairly significant correction to the proposed budget and we hope we’re within that. I believe we will be, because we’re likely not on those fields until July this year.”

Council also agreed to a $450,000 reduction to the Brandon Police Service budget, voting in favour of another motion brought forward by Coun. Luebke — the reduction of $300,000 to the appropriation to reserve, which will be added instead to an eventual debenture toward a second police building location, and a reduction of $150,000 that was added to the BPS budget by the Brandon Police Board with the intention to hire a full-time psychologist and another full-time police constable.

The psychologist position was debated around the table, with most councillors expressing the need for mental health and well being of police officers. However, the necessity of the cost was questioned for a small municipality.

“We would probably be the smallest municipality in Canada with a full-time psychologist for one department. If we bring on a psychologist, we should be looking at the whole city and every employee, really,” Coun. Desjarlais said, adding that the City of Victoria, which has 242 sworn officers, has a part-time psychologist that comes into work twice a week.

The city’s natural assets were top of mind for Coun. Shaun Cameron (Ward 4) who brought forward a motion to earmark a total of $100,000 for a Tree Enhancement program from the Parks reserve fund that would increase the urban tree canopy and enhance the biodiversity of the city’s trees.

“This program empowers residents to plant trees on private property by reimbursing them up to a portion of the purchase of a city-approved tree species from a vendor in the community. It benefits the city and benefits them as a home owner,” Cameron said. “I can see the program targeting between 300 and 400 public and private trees in 2025 over and above our current city allocation with public trees.”

Under the program, which was ultimately supported by council, residents would be responsible for planting trees supported by city development teams, and would help take care of them. More details about the program will likely come later this year.

Council also decided to add funds into the city’s capital plans toward the future development of two new community centres under “unfunded projects” — $2.2 million for a new South End Community Centre in 2027, and $2.2 million for a new Central Community Centre in 2029.

While the decision does not impact the 2025 Budget, it sets the stage for council to begin discussions around community centres, and for revisiting the city’s Recreation and Community Facilities Master Plan, which previously recommended that the total number of community centres in Brandon be reduced to just five.

Following the structure being shut down in 2017 due to mould and water damage, the original South End Community Centre was demolished. The Park Community Centre has had a different trajectory, with local residents and the community centre board pushing for a new facility following the demolition of the aging structure. The province has also promised at least one million in funds toward new construction, which would include a daycare component.

“I think we’ve had a reconsideration around community centres and their value to our community,” said Coun. Desjarlais. “There is a lack of this resource of a community centre in the south end. When that was taken away, that left a significant gap there.”

Fawcett called for a re-thinking of the Recreation and Community Facilities Master Plan as a result of recent decisions by council in favour of the Park Community Centre plan, and he was joined by Coun. Glen Parker (Ward 9) who said the current community centre model as it exists is no longer working.

“I think as a city, we need to do a really good, hard look at community centres,” Parker said, “and we need to be prepared to bring those into our fold.”

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