Today at Regional Council, the 2023 Corporate Budget Overview was presented, along with the Peel Regional Police and Ontario Provincial Police budgets.
The 2023 Corporate Budget Overview highlighted some of the challenges Peel is facing as a growing community with increased service demands. Ongoing challenges include heightened inflation, supply chain issues (including the ongoing war in Ukraine and its impacts to global supply chains), and changing legislation (specifically Bill 23, More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022 which will see changes to the way that municipalities can collect development charges to fund infrastructure).
The proposed 2023 Budget includes investments of $5.0 billion to maintain current service levels for a growing population, while addressing priority community needs. Critical urgent needs being addressed include:
- Housing affordability
- Stabilization of Public Health service delivery to sustain immunization services
- Programming to eliminate systemic discrimination
- Climate change initiatives (a regionally declared emergency)
- Increased investment in public safety including police and paramedic services
- Psychological health and well-being initiatives.
To address the challenges being faced, the 2023 Budget also reflects $4.0 million in savings and cost avoidances found through continuous improvement efforts and cost containment measures.
The 2023 Budget proposes an average property tax increase of 2.8% and a utility rate increase of 7.9%.
Next steps and more information
- January 26, 2023: Presentations for Regionally Controlled Services
- February 2, 2023: Presentations for Regionally Financed External Organizations including Conservation Halton, Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, and Credit Valley Conservation Authority.
- The Regional Council Budget meeting(s) are open to the public and residents may attend. The meeting will also be live streamed on peelregion.ca.
- Copies of the proposed 2023 Regional Operating and Capital Budgets are available at peelregion.ca/budget.
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