For a budget that technically meets Council’s 2.5% levy guideline, the 2026 draft sure feels like a warning light. Yes, the base levy comes in at 2.25%—a tidy number achieved without major service cuts or tax increases. But look closer, and it’s clear the real work isn’t being done inside Town Hall. It’s being downloaded to the residents.
Start with the now-infamous $4 garbage bag fee. Projected to raise $750,000 in new revenue, it singlehandedly offsets the levy by over 3.25%. That’s not a rounding error. It’s the lever that makes the whole balancing act possible. Layer on smaller changes like new charges for brush drop-off, burn permits, and youth activities at Tomahawk, and a pattern emerges. When push comes to shove, we balance the budget not by tightening the belt, but by reaching into residents’ pockets.
That wouldn’t be so bad if it were part of a broader effort to rein in internal costs or re-examine spending priorities. But that’s not what’s happening. Wages continue to climb. New positions are still proposed. Consulting budgets persist. Meanwhile, cost pressures keep mounting: fire suppression wages are trending $196,000 over, Development Engineering is down $1 million in budgeted revenue, and legal fees hit 93% of their annual budget halfway through the year. These aren’t one-offs. They’re signs of a deeper structural strain.
Even the staff-recommended budget, which comes in at 3.72% after adding $345,000 for Asset Management, tells a story. The Town needs to spend more just to keep up with infrastructure obligations, and that’s fair enough. But it also confirms what many residents already sense: the budget is being held together with short-term workarounds (service fees here, reserve dips there) while the real pressures go largely unaddressed.
Then there’s the matter of reserves. A recent staff report flagged over $12 million in previously completed capital projects that were never financed. Staff now propose using internal borrowing and reserve funds to patch that hole. That may be necessary, but it’s also revealing. If we’re using reserves to fund the past and fees to fund the present, what’s left to build the future?
None of this denies the reality of rising OPP bills, contracted waste costs, or inflation. It simply challenges the assumption that the only responsible path is to ask residents to pay more and get less. But we’re not cutting staff budgets or internal spending. The Town's own documents list 35% of spending as going to non-mandatory services, yet almost none of those areas saw real cuts. Most, in fact, carry on business as usual.
Residents understand that budgeting involves trade-offs. But they also expect those trade-offs to be fair. Right now, it feels like the budget is being kept affordable by making life more expensive for the people who fund it.
So we ask: If residents are being asked to do more with less, when will Town Hall do the same?
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