The Town, appropriately, has set an aggressive target of a 2.5% increase to residents' property tax levels. Establishing that goal clearly acknowledges there is financial pressure on everyone given the political and economic uncertainties of our time.
Of course, setting an objective, and realizing it, are two different things. We know there are already significant cost hits that the 2026 budget will have to absorb – including a higher OPP contract rate and a big jump in waste management service fees. Therefore, for the budget exercise to succeed in its cost containment goal, there will have to be contributions, or sacrifices, from the three stakeholder groups - Town staff, Town Council, and TBM residents.
For Town staff, it is critical they apply the insights gained from the KPMG study that prioritized the importance of various town services, grouping them in "Must Haves", "Should Do's", and "Nice-to-Do's". Some of those Nice-to-Do's may very likely have to be eliminated if we are going to make the numbers work. It may be that some employees will have to be reassigned, or vacant roles left unfilled. To realize creative cost containment, choices will have to be made that have an impact on Town staffing and assignments. To date, we have not seen any examples of those hard choices being tabled, and debated. This must be an aspect of the budget development process.
Council is going to have to accept the reality that they must address difficult trade-offs, and likely drop some services that some groups of constituents value. It would be helpful if a listing of the services, grouped by Must Haves, Should Do’s and Nice-to-Do’s, was shared with Town residents, which would allow for a better informed public budget debate. Their jobs will be made easier if they clearly present the options that are being considered, solicit resident input, and make informed and defensible spending decisions. The willingness to say "no" has not been commonly evidenced by our Council, and they must accept the necessity of doing so.
And TBM residents also have a role to play. We all get used to receiving our current set of municipal services, and clearly there are a number we can't do without. But if we are to limit the municipal tax increases, there will have to be some changes that impact which services are delivered, and how they are delivered. TBM constituents will need to support the efforts of Council as they make those tough calls. So long as we understand the logic being applied to the exercise, and the trade-offs that were considered in arriving at the difficult decisions, they should receive our support.
Will we hit the 2.5% target? We'll find out over the next couple of months if the stakeholders are prepared to play their roles to make it happen.
