February 11, 2025
Council and staff have been engaging in budget deliberations over the past month and at the Regular Council Meeting of February 11, 2025, Council considered the final 2025 budget approval. Other featured items included a presentation regarding a Municipal Accommodation Tax, the contract tender award for the Station Road to Tudhope Street reconstruction project and support for the buy local and buy Canadian movement.
2025 Budget
Council approved the 2025 Municipal Operating, Capital and Water and Sewer Budgets on February 11th, 2025 after a series of budget meetings that took place in January. This year’s municipal budget represents an increase of 4.99% inclusive of the education tax for residential rate payers. The municipality’s net levy requirement (the amount of $ collected by the Town for its operating and capital budget) has increased by approximately 4% when compared to 2024. Factoring in growth, lost assessment and the education tax, this results in a 4.99% increase to the tax bill as mentioned. Approximately 2% of the 4.99% is attributable to the reduced assessment value of the primary mill property due to its closure according to the most recent assessment value figures provided to the municipality by MPAC. MPAC is responsible for assessing the value of property in Ontario for the purposes of property taxation.
A 4.99% increase for the average assessment value of a residential property of $154,000 is equal to $139.30 more than last year on the annual bill or $11.60 per month. Assessment values are determined by MPAC and at this time have not been updated since 2016. It is important to note that assessment value is not equivalent to market value. Homes assessed by MPAC at $154,000 are likely to have a market value of well over $300,000 in Espanola at this time.
The 2025 budget represents efforts to ensure the Municipality is keeping pace with inflation to maintain current standards of service, to continue investments in our capital infrastructure and to continue investing in our people with 2.5% cost of living wage increases as agreed to in the Town’s Collective Agreements with its Labour Partners. The 2025 Budget documents will be available at the following link in the coming days: https://www.espanola.ca/town-government/financial-reports.
*Water and sewer fees were previously amended and the approval of the budget does not have a further impact on water and sewer fees.
Connecting Link Phase 4
Council approved the tender award for the Station Road to Tudhope Street reconstruction project to GIP with an upper contract limit of $6,153,404 including non-rebatable taxes. The project is expected to begin in Spring of 2025 and has a total estimated cost of $6,616,411.36 including engineering and non-rebatable taxes. The municipality is receiving $3,000,000 from the Provincial Government through the Connecting Link grant stream to put toward this project. The total municipal commitment for the project including engineering is estimated to be $3,616,411.36.
Municipal Accommodation Tax Presentation
A presentation was provided by the Town’s Economic Development Officer regarding the opportunity to implement a Municipal Accommodation Tax in partnership with the LaCloche Foothills Municipalities to raise funds to go toward tourism and economic development. Many small and large municipalities are taking advantage of this tool to raise funds for tourism and economic development in order to reduce the amount that is levied from their rate payers for this work. Valuable discussion was had at the Council table regarding whether such a program was appropriate for Espanola. Council ultimately supported that further discussion on this item continue at the LaCloche Foothills Municipal Association table in collaboration with our neighbouring municipalities and that consultation with the sector be undertaken.
Member Motions
Council approved a member motion put forward by Councillor Kennelly to support the Buy Canadian and Buy Local movement in light of the recent tariff related challenges Canada is facing with the United States of America.
The Council Rundown provides a summary of each Council Meeting. The official record of each meeting is the Meeting Minutes and can be found in the Council Meetings section of the website. Video recordings of meetings are similarly available in the same section. Any questions regarding Council Meetings can be directed to Joseph Burke, CAO/Clerk at [email protected] or by calling 705-869-1540.