HEDDY SOROUR
Although Carleton Place residents face an eight percent jump in their property taxes in 2025 they remain one of the lowest taxed municipalities in the region.
“My recommendation would be a five percent increase on top of the four percent OPP increase,” said Town treasurer Trisa McConkey adding “a five percent increase would close the gap a little bit and position the town for success in the future.”
In a public presentation of the municipal budget, McConkey compiled a comparative tax chart that places Carleton Place taxes in the three lowest taxed municipalities, less than $50 a year higher than Ottawa and more than $450 lower than Perth (the next lowest) on a home valued at $300,000.
On a monthly basis it means that Carleton Place residents are looking at an additional $13.15 on a home valued at $300,000 or $21.91 on a home valued at $500,000, according to McConkey.
This year’s tax jolt comes after five years of relatively modest increases of three percent or less.
“Your tax rate has really not kept up with inflation. We’ve done a lot of work to try and bring efficiencies to the town and like I said, we’ve deferred a lot of things based on the cost,” McConkey told committee members at the November 26 budget presentation.
The biggest driver’s of the increase are OPP contract costs (up 26 percent) and the Ottawa Construction Price Index (up 62 percent since 2013) and labour shortages which are putting considerable pressure on all municipalities as they continue to work on their asset management plans in a climate of dwindling provincial and federal grants and transfer payments.
Carleton Place is not alone. All the municipalities in the county that are served by the OPP are facing a hike in cost.
“All OPP municipalities got a massive increase, not all equal 26 percent but we all got a huge increase in our bills,” said McConkey.
As one of the fastest growing municipalities in the region, the town is also having to increase its workforce.
“Growth doesn’t just come with more tax dollars. The town incurs more costs for newer expanded facilities and it needs to increase its workforce to serve the new residents as well as current residents,” said McConkey.
Meanwhile the current budget addresses a number of infrastructure projects and strategic initiatives. This year the town is planning to continue the overlay road maintenance program, reconstruct Grant, Bennet, Duncan and Brown, Ann and Down Streets, continue upgrading street lights to LEDs, replace the museum windows and doors, rehabilitate the Canoe club balcony and railing among a slew of other projects, (full list can be viewed on the budget presentation online https://carletonplace.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/2025-Public-Draft-Budget-Presentation.pdf)
Some of the strategic priorities staff are proposing to address in 2025 including accessible washrooms at the Arena, fencing at the McLaren Diamond, investments in online services and communication to fully develop the online service delivery platform and digitize paper files among many other projects.
The new budget is expected to pass before the end of 2024 and it appears that the province is holding the education tax portion of the municipal tax bill at last year’s rate. Meanwhile the town is still waiting to hear from the county.
“I know we’ve all been looking at all these numbers a lot these past few weeks and they don’t get any easier to see,” said Councillor Dena Comley, adding that the public is invited to examine the budget presentation online and send in their thoughts and suggestions.
“Please submit your comments to Trisa in writing because that puts them on record, by December 5, and all the comments will come back to this table,” said Comley.
