Average homeowner in Waterloo region to see regional taxes go up by $165 next year
CBC
The average homeowner in Waterloo region will see their regional tax bill rise by $165 in 2024.
That comes after regional councillors passed the 2024 operating and capital budget. Including police services, the budget is $2.1 billion. It is a 6.9 per cent increase over 2023.
The average home value is based on assessments done in 2016 by the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC), which reported the typical residential property in the region was assessed at approximately $407,000.
The final budget report from regional staff noted a one per cent tax rate increase generates $7 million.
Councillors started Wednesday in committee considering a 7.95 per cent increase to property taxes, which would have translated to approximately $189 for the average household for the year.
Councillors trimmed one per cent from the final budget number. The motion to pass the budget was carried unanimously.
The regional budget covers all aspects of the region including staffing, transit, police, paramedics, housing, roads and infrastructure and the various services offered.
The budget for the Waterloo Regional Police Service requested more than $228 million this year. That request represented a 6.71 per cent levy increase over 2023.
Coun. Rob Deutschmann said Wednesday he didn't feel like the police service was being transparent with regional council in this budget numbers.
He said the police service wants to hire more officers, but the service hasn't kept up with the hiring targets it's already set. He said that meant the police service was able to put money not spent on new officers into reserve funds.
"This budget should be rejected and sent back to police services board. It is not doing a service to the taxpayers of the Region of Waterloo. It is not transparent and it is taking far more than they should be taking from the tax base," he said.
"We should be asking them to do better. They're not listening to us, they're not hearing us and they can do better."
Chair Karen Redman, who also chairs the police board, said the police board members take their roles "very seriously."
"We ask the hard questions and we are accountable so I think the budget before us is one worth passing," Redman said.
A suspended Moncton structural engineer faces more lawsuits alleging design flaws in buildings that require repair.
Sajjade Tugano has come a long way since he first set foot in Chibougamau, six hours north of Quebec City, in the depths of winter in November 2021.
A national mentor-based hockey organization that helps marginalized youth through the sport is paying tribute to one of its members and youngest coaches.
After months of asking the City of Saskatoon to do more to solve its homelessness crisis, advocate David Fineday took to the stand at city council Tuesday.
A community organization wants to breathe new life into a historic building in Regina.
Some Prince County residents are walking away with more answers after attending Tuesday night's public information session in Albany, P.E.I., on the Wejipek Wind Project.
After just a few months of using vape detectors in a couple of bathrooms, a B.C. high school principal says it's reduced vape use in those areas to basically zero.
Burlington MP Karina Gould gets boost from local young people after entering Liberal leadership race
A day after entering the Liberal leadership race, Burlington, Ont., MP and government House leader Karina Gould was cheered at a campaign launch party by local residents — including young people expressing hope the 37-year-old politician will represent their voices.
Anold Mulaisho was born intersex and wonders where they fit in, in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order for the United States to recognize only two sexes, male and female.
WARNING: This story contains references to suicide.
Subway service is down on Line 1 between Sheppard West and Lawrence West due to a broken power rail, the TTC said Wednesday morning.
A long-term care home in Toronto's Yorkville neighbourhood has cleared one more hurdle to add desperately needed beds to its property, a move that's been praised by housing advocates but opposed by locals concerned about the impact on the neighbourhood.
A Charlottetown resident is calling on the P.E.I. government to do more to protect homeowners after reading about a recent oil spill very similar to one on his Montague property 20 years ago, which he says ruined him financially.
WARNING: This story includes details of abuse.
Two years after Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly declared she was taking the unprecedented step of moving to confiscate millions of dollars from a sanctioned Russian oligarch with assets in Canada, the government has not actually begun the court process to forfeit the money, let alone to hand it over to Ukrainian reconstruction — and it may never happen.
Alberta business and oilpatch leaders are returning home from Washington this week after the U.S. presidential inauguration festivities — and gritting their teeth after a roller-coaster of emotions.
Youth workers in Toronto's Jane and Finch area are flipping the script on negative stereotypes about their communities with a new fundraising campaign that offers anti-bias training in exchange for donations to bolster their programming.
In a sudden move that came late Tuesday evening, city officials rolled out cots and temporarily opened a warm building in east London as frigid temperatures continued.