After having a negative increase last year, tax rates in Belleville will go up slightly this year, between 1.4% for Belleville urban residents and 0.29% for those in the rural part of the city.
Those rates were made official on Tuesday after Belleville Council approved the city’s 2021 operating budget, at a total of $181.5 million, which is a 4.1% increase over 2020.
That means the annual residential tax bill increases, for a home with an average assessment of $250,000, are as follows:
- Belleville Urban – 1.4% ($57.51/year or $4.79/month)
- Cannifton Urban – 1.45% ($57.12/year or $4.76/month)
- Cannifton Rural – 0.71% ($12.85/year or $1.07/month)
- Belleville Rural – 0.29% ($9.17/year or $0.76/month)
Councillor Bill Sandison sits on the city’s finance committee and says it took a lengthy, but collaborative process, to come up with a responsible operational spending plan that recognizes 2021 as “a year of recovery”.
“So the 2021 budget is geared towards delivery of excellent service to our residents, while targeting investment and growth in the organization.”
Mayor Mitch Panciuk agreed that collaboration was key in coming up with the budget and says the addition of the finance committee has made the process much smoother.
“Prior to the finance committee it was basically only the mayor that would have had input on the budget before it was presented to council. When you only have one set of eyes and one idea, three is better than one, so having three councillors on that (committee), I think goes a long way.”
As far as highlights in the operational budget, the mayor points towards $6 million from upper levels of government to help deal with the impacts of COVID-19, calling that “a big assist” to the city in continuing to provide services to residents.
He says there’s also an increase in the seniors’ rebate, from $600 to $700, an expansion of Belleville Transit into Ward 2 this fall and hiring more staff to assist with planned projects and upgrades across the city.
“The Hillcrest Park and what’s going to be there, we need someone to be the architect on that. The work that’s going to be done at the fairgrounds for the outdoor recreation facility, the expansion of trails and establishment of the Thurlow dog park. Many other outdoor recreational projects are going to happen this year and we’re funding a person to be able to deal with that.”
An engineer is also being hired to help with things like the Loyalist Secondary Plan, which would allow the expansion north of the current Potter’s Creek, as well as $400,000 for the Bell Boulevard Corridor Study.
It also includes a 6.32% increase in the police budget and an increase in the library budget as well, but manages to handle some significant COVID-19 related losses, including close to $2.5 million that the city would have received from hosting the Shorelines Casino.
Panciuk says there is also more funding going into the community improvement plan to build more affordable rental housing in the city.
“This comes out of the housing summit. We had to go through that process and get all of that legal work done and it’s been done. Now this year, we’ll continue to provide a financial incentive to builders and developers, to get us more rental accommodations in our market.”
Panciuk says that’s all in addition to the capital projects that were approved in the fall.
You can click here to read the full budget summary and see the full open session of deliberations from Tuesday, in the videos below.
