Brampton City Council approved the 2017 budget last week, with a 3.3% budget increase and a hike in property taxes. But what does it all mean? Here’s a breakdown of how your tax dollars are going to be spent.
City budget Increase– 3.3%
How the city budget increase breaks down:
Maintain existing service level for increase population – 0.5%
New and enhanced fire and transit service – 0.8%
Infrastructure levy – 2.0%
Property tax increase – 2.3%
1.5% goes to the City of Brampton
0.8% goes to Region of Peel
On an average $443,000 home in Brampton, that’s a tax increase of $107
The city’s overall budget increase is a different number than your property tax increase because the city gets income through user fees like recreational programs, transit fares, development charges, sponsorship, and higher order government programs, grants, and subsidies.
Transit
Between 2010-2015, the population grew by 17% but transit ridership grew by 53%
The 2017 budget increase will allow Brampton Transit to serve 500,000 more riders and hire 34 new transit operations, mechanics and other personnel.
Fire
22 new firefighters will be hired to improve Brampton Fire’s response time. Currently they respond within 8 minutes 27% of the time and are looking to do so 90% of the time.
2017 Operating Budget: $631.6 million
This part of the budget includes council and staff wages, programming and other services. Currently the city does not provide a line by line breakdown.
2017 Capital Budget: $183.2 million
$61.9 million goes to Public Works and Engineering – 33.7%
Roads, sidewalks, trails, engineering design
$34.7 million for Community Services – 18.9%
Facility refurbishment, community centre renovations
$71.4 million for Transit – 38.9%
New buses, new transit shelters, Airport Zum
$6.5 million for Corporate Services – 3.5%
$5.3 million for Fire and Emergency Services – 2.8%
New fire trucks and equipment
$1.6 million for Planning and Development – 0.8%
Planning studies and design
$1.6 million for other – 0.8%
OPERATIONAL BUDGET BREAKDOWN:
70.8% comes from property taxes
23.7% comes from user fees, service charges, transit fares
2.5% comes from investment
1.7% comes from grants and subsidies
1.3% comes from reserves
CAPITAL BUDGET REVENUES:
26.6% from property tax
42.8% from gas tax and federal/province grants
11.2% from debt financing
11.1% from development charge reserves
8.3% from other sources
CITY RESERVES:
$68.5 million of city operating budget, or 10%, will go into reserves
$27.8 million is expected to be drawn from reserves in 2017