Candidates on Taxes

David Adams

Yes,

That said I would support exceeding inflation if the City Manager was able to persuade council via cost benefit analysis that it would be less expensive to spend money on key pieces of infrastructure or other preventative maintenance now (thus potentially pushing property taxes higher than inflation) than waiting when the cost of having to repair or renew infrastructure would be significantly higher.

Thomas Arakal

Yes, I support making the rate of inflation the normal benchmark for property-tax increases.

Owen Sound residents are already carrying a significant tax burden. Before asking residents to pay more, I believe Council should first ask: Can we find efficiencies? Can we reduce unnecessary spending? Can we use reserves appropriately? And can we obtain provincial or federal funding for eligible projects?

I would expect the City to be much more aggressive in pursuing every available provincial and federal grant before placing additional costs on local property taxpayers. Ontario has funding programs specifically designed to help municipalities with infrastructure and other eligible projects, so we should make sure Owen Sound is maximizing those opportunities.

I would support exceeding inflation only when there is a compelling and clearly demonstrated reason - such as critical infrastructure, public safety, an emergency, or another essential investment that cannot reasonably be funded through efficiencies, grants, reserves or other appropriate revenue sources.

If taxes must increase above inflation, Council should clearly explain why, how much is required, what alternatives were considered, what outside funding was pursued, and what taxpayers will receive in return.

I don't believe the answer to every budget challenge should automatically be asking property taxpayers for more money. We need to look for savings and outside funding first.

Taxpayers should be the last resort - not the first source of additional revenue.

Ross Baker

YES

(on exceeding inflation) More money for policing, garbage pickup, etc. necessary costs.

Justin Bianco

I would support using inflation as an important benchmark and expecting the City to make every reasonable effort to keep tax increases at or below that level.

However, I would not support an absolute cap that prevents Council from responding to circumstances that may be outside the City's control. If an increase above inflation is proposed, I believe Council and the City Manager should be required to clearly explain why it is necessary, what alternatives were considered and what efforts were made to reduce the increase.

Regarding exceeding inflation:

Circumstances could include a serious infrastructure failure, emergency expenditures, provincially mandated requirements, significant increases in essential services such as policing or fire protection, unexpected losses of outside funding, or investments that can clearly be demonstrated to save taxpayers money over the longer term.

Any increase above inflation should be the exception rather than something Council automatically accepts, and the reasons should be explained publicly.

Dale Funston

I totally agree with you on the property tax issue. It's one, if not the biggest reasons for running for council. Property taxes in the city have gotten out of control. The value to service ratio I feel is very poor. I feel that spending needs to be reined in. There has to be savings somewhere in the budget.

Yes I would support the property tax being limited to the rate of inflation or less.

Anything over that would need to be justified.

Brock Hamley

I do support using inflation as an important benchmark when setting the annual budget, but I would not support an absolute cap that prevents Council from responding to circumstances facing the City. Inflation should be a benchmark, not a formula. In 2023, for example, Council approved a municipal levy increase of just 0.86% while national inflation averaged 3.9%. A responsible budget should come in below inflation when circumstances allow.

Jaret Koop

Lower the cost of government.

This is definitely one of my goals, and I'm always open to talking through ideas that could help lower the budget. I just think there are a lot of different ways we can approach it. For me, the first place to look is how we're using the resources we already have.

A good example is the drop in general volunteering. We're seeing more and more things that residents expect from the city, things that used to be handled entirely by volunteers, now landing on city staff. The Festival of Northern Lights is a perfect case: the setup, maintenance, and teardown used to be volunteer run, and now it's all handled by the parks department. That ties up staff who could be focusing on other priorities. There are already efforts to rebuild volunteering among the 16 to 50 yr old population, but does anyone know about it? Does anyone know how to get involved? Does anyone even know about the need for help?

There are plenty of opportunities like this. Even if it doesn't immediately shrink the budget, it would make a noticeable difference in how the city looks and feels. If staff weren't stretched so thin, they could spend more time on the things people routinely raise concerns about, like weeds, maintenance, and general disrepair in our parks. It's about strengthening the community side so the city can concentrate on the work only the city can do.

Justin Melanson

I will not support tax increases on homes or businesses if the city cannot show progress and do its job. Prosperity and growth come first. If assessment is flat, people are leaving, and downtown is weaker; another increase is not justified. I support limiting levy increases to inflation possibly every other year unless there is a clear, written reason-legal requirement, public safety, or a repair that costs more if we wait. "We need more money to keep doing what we have been doing" is not enough.

Melanie Middlebro

No. This line of thinking is too simplistic. The factors affecting budgets are multi-faceted and fluid. Council does its best to control budgetary increases. I personally would like to keep increases under inflation, but it isn't always feasible. It takes discipline, the ability to say NO and to make some unpopular decisions.

Regarding exceeding inflation: Again, circumstances are always changing. It is impossible to comment on or predict all the factors that can affect the budget - local, provincial, federal, global, climate, tariffs, pandemics etc. You look at the current situation you are in and make the best decisions you can in the current fiscal climate.

Meghan Robertson

I support reviewing all aspects of the city's costs ( capital and services). The city has expenses related to construction, Infrastructure and reserves. The costs of materials in particular are unpredictable in the current trade environment. These expenses are not included in the consumer inflation rate. Approximately 1% of the annual increase in taxes is dedicated to infrastructure. I would work hard to maintain or reduce increases, while maintaining the city's properties and infrastructure.

Tamara Sargent

Affordability is central to my campaign. My goal is not simply to keep taxes down - it is to ensure the cost of our public services is distributed according to ability to pay, rather than continually shifting more of the burden onto working people.

This is why I have proposed a Vacant Residential Property Tax, so that homes deliberately left vacant contribute more while creating an incentive to put those homes back into use.

I would treat inflation as an important benchmark and expect a clear public justification whenever Council proposes an increase above it. However, I would not support an absolute cap that could prevent necessary investments in infrastructure or public services.

I believe we also need to talk about who pays municipal taxes, not simply how much we collect. The problem isn't necessarily how much the City needs to provide the services people rely on; the question is how we distribute that cost fairly.

When Owen Sound became part of Grey County in 2001, the City advocated to retain control over its tax ratios. We succeeded, and Ontario Regulation 311/01 was passed, giving Owen Sound the exceptional ability to continue setting its own tax ratios independently of Grey County. However, that independence came with an expectation that Owen Sound would gradually move its tax ratios toward those of Grey County, without establishing a deadline for when that convergence had to be completed.

More than two decades later, I believe it is time for Owen Sound to challenge that expectation. Rather than continuing to migrate our tax ratios toward the County's, Council should advocate to the Province for the right to design a tax system that reflects the needs of our own community.

That authority gives Council a choice: ask wealthy business property owners to pay a fairer share, or continue placing a disproportionate burden on working class Owen Sound homeowners.

Instead, this past Council has moved in the opposite direction. When it took office, the multi-residential tax ratio was 1.6779. Council progressively reduced it to 1.0 in 2026. That doesn't reduce the amount of money the City needs to collect - it just reduces the amount that large landlords pay, while shifting more of the levy onto residential homeowners.

In other words, Council shifted the tax burden away from large multi-residential property owners and onto working class homeowners.

I disagree with this direction. I want Council to advocate for greater control over municipal taxation and use that authority to distribute the burden more fairly.

If the City continues down this path by migrating its commercial tax ratio from its current 1.71 toward 1.0, next commercial properties will pay a smaller share of the levy - and homeowners will again be forced to make up more of the difference.

We can make municipal taxes more affordable for working people without sacrificing the public services they rely on. The answer isn't simply lower taxes - it's fairer taxes.

David Walton

Taxes are necessary and no one wants their services reduced. All tax increases must be justified but I don't think that inflation is the only factor. We are in a time of extreme weather events that can't be predicted and they will increase costs for the city. The city can set budgets but the last 2 winters showed us that budgets get exceeded. We can't have the snowplows stop when the budget runs out.

Other geo political factors can increase costs dramatically as we have seen recently. I would support exceeding the budget under the above mentioned conditions.

Michael Zimon

The city budget has increased from 37 million to 53 million in a dozen years! 1 1/2 times. Controlling property tax increases is contingent on how much the city spends on things that it doesn't have to spend money on.

If you've been inside City Hall lately you would see that when they put up new walls they didn't use $15 sheet drywall. They use $2,000 a sheet of tempered glass for all the walls and doors. What other business in Owen Sound is this palatial? Was this necessary? No. They also spent a couple million dollars in turning a back alley and a riverfront into....a back alley and a riverfront. A back alley that nobody uses except delivery vehicles.

And when do they do these things? 2 years after the election and two years before the next election when everybody's asleep. City Hall did need some work. It doesn't give them carte blanche to spend over a million dollars on glass walls, and who knows what it cost to put in the terrarium on the front and another one on the back of City Hall for having meetings. They have meeting rooms in the basement.

And this is after they said we cannot afford a new city hall. Two years later they basically built a new city hall. The council had their priorities wrong. And told us they saved us 3 million because it's only 8 million, and a new city hall would be 11 million.

When city hall was built in 1962 after the former one burnt down, ironically right beside the fire department, they over engineered it and they overbuilt it and it was quite controversial. But they did this so that they could add four more stories on top of it, because by the year 2000 Owen Sound would be 50,000 people because of its good rail lines coming into the city and the best natural harbour on the Great Lakes, and the industrial lands already for more industry to move in.

Eight Candidates did not respond to this question