The City of Winnipeg’s 2025 budget will go to a city council vote Wednesday.
Among the items in the preliminary budget is a tax hike of almost six per cent, which is expected to raise taxes by $121 for a typical house assessed at $371,000.
Despite the increase, much of the concern from the public surrounded a now-abandoned snow-clearing measure.
“I held two budget consultations in the Waverley West ward, and [the tax increase] wasn’t the pushback,” Coun. Janice Lukes told Global Winnipeg.
“People were curious, they had questions, they wanted a better understanding, [but] they were more worried about snow than the tax increase.”
The city intended to launch a pilot project, increasing the snow-clearing threshold — but due to public backlash, it has since been axed.
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Mayor Scott Gillingham says it’s all part of the open and transparent process of municipal budgets, which give residents an opportunity to provide feedback.
“Provincial governments and federal governments do not have this process where the public weighs in after a draft budget is tabled,” Gillingham said.
“One of the things we heard from the public loud and clear on was to move the threshold for snow-clearing on residential streets from the current 10 centimetres to 15 centimetres…. They don’t want that.
“They want us to maintain our current standard of service, so we are going to be backing off.”
Gillingham, who said he believes Winnipeggers will support the budget, said the tax increase will help pay for — among other services — public safety measures.
“The key investments that we’re making are around community safety, especially public safety — there’s more police officers that are going to be hired. More community safety officers are going to be on our transit buses and around our transit stops to make transit a safer space.
“There’s more firefighters coming on board right now, which is important at a time when the number of fires in Winnipeg continues to be disturbingly high.”
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