Halifax regional council unanimously approved its budget for the next fiscal year. The budget includes an operating budget of $1.04 billion, a capital budget of $306.5 million, and an average tax bill hike of 6.3%.

CAO Cathie O’Toole made remarks on the final budget to council’s budget committee meeting on Tuesday. The final budget is available here.

“This has been a challenging budget year. Continuing population growth and increased demand for municipal services and higher-than-normal inflation has added a considerable amount of pressure to our financial planning,” O’Toole said.

O’Toole said several reductions in the budget, including in capital spending, reserve contributions, and operating expenses, were made to reduce increase in the tax rate to 6.3%.

Starting this fiscal year, the municipality will no longer have to collect and remit taxes for corrections and housing to the province.

“Previously, these charges were included in the provincial rate sections of residents’ tax bills,” O’Toole said. “While this change has no effect on our overall municipal budget, it does lower the total tax bill, which includes the portion the municipality collects on the province’s behalf.”

The next residential tax bill, including provincial contributions and mandatory taxes, will increase by 6.3% or approximately $214 a year.

Budget highlights

O’Toole listed several highlights from the budget that were also included in a press release sent out by the municipality after the budget committee meeting:

Communities 
• $2 million for a 24/7 fire station conversion in Hammonds Plains 
• Funding for 22 new Halifax Regional Police positions and six new Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers 
• $2.3 million in continued Community Safety programs and new positions 
• Funding for 10 new crossing guard positions 

Prosperous Economy 
• $7.5 million in budgeted tax relief for non-profit and charitable organizations 

Environment 
• $18.6 million for capital projects as part of HalifACT: Acting on Climate Together 

Integrated Mobility 
• $271 million for the Mill Cove Ferry Terminal project 
• $2.4 million for funding of the Integrated Mobility Plan 

Confusion over tax rates

There were concerns about some of the figures around tax rates. This budget includes an average municipal tax bill, which is increasing by 8.2%, while the average total tax bill (including the provincial portion of the bill) will go up by 6.3%.

Coun. Tim Outhit asked what figure will be included in communications and public service announcements to avoid confusion. O’Toole and CFO Jerry Blackwood said the 6.3% figure would be the number going out in correspondence to the public. The following chart details the changes:

A graphic with the average municipal tax bill for 2024-25, which is 8.2% and the average total tax bill for 2024-25, which is 6.3%
Credit: HRM

Mayor Mike Savage said in previous budget years the municipal costs weren’t separate from the provincial costs.

“I’m appreciative of the fact that the provincial government has taken off the housing and corrections part of the tax bill, but we would have been better off if they just froze their contributions because the increase in mandatory education went up more than what we’re getting back,” Savage said.

“But we’re still collecting more for the provincial government than before.”

Savage said a new formula is needed to fund municipalities.

“We’re the ones, through the Housing Accelerator Fund and other initiatives, we have to pay for the infrastructure. In the 1990s, municipal government collected 14% of all taxes. Today, we’re below 10% of all taxes,” Savage said.

“It’s not a sustainable formula. Property tax goes back to pre-Confederation in this country, and we’ve never had a really good look at it.”

Future budget processes

Deputy Mayor Cathy Deagle Gammon asked changing up the budgeting process for future councils, specifically creating a four-year budget.

“Four-year budgeting can be an advantage to council and it can be an advantage to taxpayers in terms of transparency and knowing what you’re going to be looking at,” Deagle Gammon said.

“Instead of doing this lovely journey every year, of starting high and coming down to something, I think the four-year budgeting process has some very positive attributes.”

Coun. Trish Purdy said she supports a multi-year budget process, adding she doesn’t “enjoy this budget process at all.”

“I think that’s beneficial to everyone, not just council and councillors, but to residents as well,” Purdy said. “It’s for knowing the security and the stability of the next few years in advance.”

O’Toole said moving to a multi-year budget would be “very beneficial.”

“Hand in hand with developing multi-year budgeting, I think we’ll be looking at multi-year performance measurements of things like affordability also,” O’Toole said.

Budget includes money for more cops, transit fare hike

The budget was not without its controversy.

In October, Halifax Regional Police presented its budget for 24 more officers. Also in the fall, Halifax Regional Detachment of the RCMP presented its request for seven more officers.

There was significant public opposition to the requested increases to those police budgets, with residents and advocates attending virtual and in-person meetings to comment on the budget requests.

But as the Examiner reported in March, Halifax Regional Police and RCMP got their cops, as council approved both police budgets, with only a slight reduction from what was asked for. HRP will get 22 more officers, while the RCMP will get six, including the two intimate partner violence investigators.

The budget also includes a increase in transit fares by 25 cents for a single fare. That fare hike will take place on Sept. 1.

Suzanne Rent is a writer, editor, and researcher. You can follow her on Twitter @Suzanne_Rent and on Mastodon

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3 Comments

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  1. I always find discussing property taxes with others very difficult as a result of the tax amount and tax rate presentations. When we talk about, say, provincial income tax, we always discuss the rate, the percentage of our income we’re taxed. No one discusses how, in any given year, the tax rates might all stay the same but because of average incomes increasing over last year more income taxes would be collected. We’d never call this a tax hike, but that’s exactly what we do with property taxes. This 6.3% property tax increase is happening on a property tax rate decrease from 1.115% to 1.110% because the average property value is increasing.

  2. It’s odd that they don’t ever mention the assessment cap (the one that the vast majority of homeowners qualify for). With a cap of 3.2% on taxable assessed values, most homeowners will be seeing a 2.7% increase in their total tax bill. I would’ve thought administrators and councilors would see a benefit in making that clear to people.

    1. Hi Tim. The assessment cap is mentioned in the budget document, but it wasn’t mentioned at the meeting today.