Before I get into tabling our 2025 budget, I’d like to begin with some well-deserved thank yous. Firstly, Stouffville’s Council is committed to seeing our town thrive as a leading community in Ontario, continuously striving for improvement and enhancing the quality of life for our residents. I want to thank my Council colleagues for their ongoing dedication to our town and for their input into the 2025 budget process. Because of your efforts, Stouffville continues to prosper. Our residents trust us to deliver excellent value for their tax dollars, knowing we will always seek ways to improve efficiency without compromising on our high standards of service.
I also want to extend my heartfelt thanks to all our staff, our residents, community groups, businesses, and government partners who support our vision to be a welcoming community with a rural-urban dynamic, providing an exceptional quality life for our residents. Through strong leadership and collective effort, Stouffville has been recognized with numerous awards this year, which is a testament to our shared commitment to excellence.
To date this year, we have received 15 awards, the most ever in our town’s history.
- Town of Stouffville awarded Human Resources Director (HRD) Canada’s Best Places to Work for 2024 – HR Team
- 2024 Hermes Creative Awards for Outstanding Design in Marketing & Communications (4 awards)
- 2024 Hermes Creative Awards – Stouffville Library
- 2024 Hermes Creative Award – Latcham Art Centre
- GFOA Budget Award for 2024-2026 Budget Book o Distinguished Budget Presentation Award – Budget and Financial Planning Division (Finance Services Commission)
- 2024 Gold Viddy Award o Street Art Seniors of Stouffville Documentary – Latcham Art Centre
- 2024 Festival & Events Ontario (FEO) Awards – Heritage, Events and Theatre Operations team (Community Services Commission) o Top 100 Festival Awards – 3 Awards for:▪ Stouffville Ribfest ▪ Stouffville Holiday Market▪ 50th Annual Antique & Classic Car Show
- 2024 MarCom Awards – Latcham Arts Centreo Gold Award – for Latcham’s 45th Anniversary Marketing Campaign
We also had some staff receive recognition that we have highlighted before but are worth another mention.
- Tony Brenner Mentor Award from the Ontario Recreation Facility Association (ORFA) o Presented to Facilities Supervisor, Community Services Commission (Bob Heickert)
- Service Medal at the Commonwealth Honour Awards o Presented to Aquatic & Fitness Supervisor, Community Services Commission (Eddie Tang) for his work with the Lifesaving Society
These awards are reflective of just some of the accomplishments and reasons to celebrate our investments in the town which is why I am pleased to present the Whitchurch-Stouffville 2025/2027 Draft Operating and Capital Budget and our Water and Wastewater Budget.
Earlier this summer, I exercised the powers under the Strong Mayor’s Act to issue a Directive to staff to begin drafting the 2025/2027 Operating and Capital Budgets and Water and Wastewater Budget. I would like to acknowledge and thank all the staff members who have contributed to the drafting of these budgets and the hours of work and meetings put in to get us here.
I want to thank Jeremy Harness, Commissioner of Finance & Treasurer, and Clayton Pereira, Manager of Budgets and Financial Planning for their expertise in preparing these documents being tabled today. Today is somewhat bittersweet as Clayton’s last day with the town is this Friday. Clayton is leaving us for the City of Hamilton where he has accepted the role of Director of Revenue Services. Over the past 5 years, Clayton has played a key role in advancing several initiatives, including service-based budgeting, improved asset management and the Development Charges Background Study. His passion and professionalism will truly be missed.
Clayton – on behalf of Council, we wish you all the best. Our loss is truly Hamilton’s gain. The Hammer is not too far away, and I hope you’ll come back and visit in the future.
And to Jeremy – your amazing team have provided us once again with well-researched and fiscally responsible budgets, and on behalf of all of Council, thank you for your hard work.
I also want to acknowledge our talented Communications team, led by Corporate Communications Manager Glenn Jackson, for their award-winning creative efforts in putting together a budget book that is visually appealing and inviting to read. (Hold up budget book.) Thank you, Glenn, Cassandra, and Kira for your hard work on this year’s budget book. Madame Clerk, Can you please distribute the budget books to council and SLT.
And, of course, all this work is done under the leadership of Chief Administrative Officer, Sunny Bains for whom I am grateful for pretty much every day!
Despite being given Strong Mayors Powers to deliver our budgets, I have committed to my Council colleagues that we will continue to work together, as a team, to advance budgets that focus on our shared priorities by executing our strategic plan. Council and staff are unified in our commitment to enhancing our residents’ experiences in town, and I believe the 2025 budget demonstrates just that, once again.
A number of years ago, Council endorsed a change to our budgeting process. This is now our 4th service-based budget, highlighting our 5 strategic service areas.
The first service area is A Town that Grows. This functionally covers building permits, Development Services, business and marriage licensing and new business attraction and retention.
The Town of Stouffville is becoming more and more attractive for families, seniors, and businesses and it is our priority to maintain a manageable growth rate and create a complete community that helps meet the needs for residents’ daily living. The cost per household, per day for this service is $0.05
The second service area is A Town that Moves. This area covers traffic management, road maintenance, sidewalk maintenance and street lighting.An efficient transportation system enhances people’s quality of life and facilitates economic development in Town. Our goal is to improve thecondition and efficiency of the local road network while addressing connectivity and advancing active transportation facilities. The cost per household, per day in this service area is $0.81.
The third service area is A Healthy and Greener Town. This area covers recreation programming, parks, trails and open spaces, tree canopy maintenance, cemeteries, waste collection, recycling and composting.
The Town of Stouffville is striving to improve the wellbeing of its residents by increasing offerings and opportunities for active living, promoting responsible use and protection of natural resources. The cost per household, per day here is $0.51.
The fourth service area is An Engaging Town. This area covers events and community engagement, theatre programming, museum services Latcham Art Centre and the Library.
We recognize the importance of building a welcoming community where each member feels engaged, empowered, and supported. Cultural events and community activities contribute to a positive sense of place, embrace diversity, and foster inclusivity. I believe the recognition and awards we have received recently have given us the confidence that we are on the right track. Also of note, our success has caught the attention of my regional colleagues who admire the sense of small-town community we have been able to maintain despite the growth we have seen. In other words, they are envious of us. The cost for this service area is $0.67 per household, per day.
Our fifth service area is A Safe Town. The Town of Stouffville is committed to becoming a safer town by ensuring residents have access to the services that promote safety in their neighbourhoods and across the town such as fire education and prevention, fire response, Municipal law and parking enforcement, animal services and crossing guards. The cost here is $1.48 per household, per day.
Two upporting areas to our 5 strategic pillars are Good Governance and Organizational Effectiveness. First, let me touch on Good Governance. This area covers Council representation, Council support, corporate leadership, internal auditing, legal support, risk management and election management. The Town of Stouffville is committed to being transparent and accountable to its residents by providing easy access to information and facilitating participation in the democratic process. We work in consultation with Council, the Community, and our partners at other levels of government to strengthen the Town and the manner in which we deliver services and programs to our residents and our stakeholders. The cost for this area is $0.59 per day.
And secondly, under Organizational Effectiveness are communications, customer service, facility management, financial and infrastructure management, fleet management, Human Resources and information technology services. Enabling services support the entire organization and are the foundation of service delivery to our residents. The Town aspires that all services are provided in a professional and effective manner. We are committed to continuously improving our operating processes, safeguarding information and assets, and improving customer service experience across all service areas. These areas are supported by a cost of $2.63 per household, per day.
So, in total, the average cost per household, per day for all the services the town provides is $6.74. Let’s put that in comparison to some other costs.
The average cost for a cell phone plan is $2 per day. Today you can’t get lunch for under $15. A dozen eggs are at least $4.50. 3 bags of Milk are $5. A roundtrip Go Train ride is $22. As you can see from these examples, at 6.74 per day, the town provides some tremendous value daily to our residents.
Residents will also see their water and wastewater rates increasing this year by a combined 4.4% or a combined rate of $5.99 per cubic meter. The costs associated with delivering safe clean drinking water and disposing of waste are growing and as the one area where elected officials are personally liable, I am happy to pay a little more to ensure everyone in town doesn’t have to think twice about drinking from the tap.
Another very important point I want to make is that the town doesn’t keep every tax dollar it collects from residents. $0.24 goes to the Province of Ontario to fund education, $0.42 goes to York region which leaves the town with $0.34 of every dollar to meet our budget. I believe it is important context to remember when looking at your tax bill.
Now regardless of that context, Council recognizes that affordability is still a major issue facing us all. Like all municipalities across Canada, the town has faced significant inflationary pressures over the last few years, resulting in rising costs to deliver the programs, services and projects that keep our town running. We also know these inflationary pressures affect our residents too…from groceries, to gas, to mortgage payments…life in general is becoming more and more expensive.
And that is why it was so important to me and to Council that we do our very best to balance the needs of the town, with the needs of our residents, to manage every dollar diligently, and keep the proposed tax increase to a minimum. This budget proposes a 2.69% operational tax levy increase with an additional 2% contribution for capital asset needs and a 1% dedicated contribution for the upcoming Main Street Reconstruction project.
Despite the ongoing need for a 3% capital contribution to our reserves, from what I have seen so far from other municipalities, this will be one of the lowest 2025 blended tax rate increase in the GTA at 3.86% This increase of 3.86% is a testament of Stouffville continuing to maintain the 7th lowest tax rate in the GTA.
When the budget process began earlier this year, we were looking at operating budget pressures of 16.13%, which did not even include requests for 36 new full-time employees, which would have added another 4% to the tax levy.
Financial pressures such as contractual staffing obligations, and seeing the impact of inflationary pressures on capital projects have all had an impact. With some hard number crunching, we have addressed these pressures by finding budgetary efficiencies, applying increased revenues in programming and new assessment growth. I am very happy that we landed on a small 2.69% increase as opposed to the 16% that the numbers initially showed.
The overall capital budget for 2025 is just over $30M with itemized projects listed in the budget book, but I want to highlight 5 important projects that will have immediate public impact.
The first is the construction of Fire Station 52 in Ballantrae, which falls under A Safe Town. Our new joint fire and emergency services station will be moving a little west on Aurora Road, which will lead to decreasing response times westerly and ensuring safety for the growing Ballantrae community. Council has made significant investments in making station 52 a 24/7 station and we are taking the next important step to ensure the safety of our residents. The construction cost for this initiative is $9,750,000.
The second project is the construction of a park at Tenth Line, more specifically, McKean Drive and Yakefarm Boulevard. This Ward 3 community park is being advanced much sooner than has been our past practice. Going forward, as subdivisions are developed, we hope to have the local park amenities developed simultaneously, so that new residents do not have to wait to enjoy park amenities. This park is being developed at a construction cost of $2,246,000.
The third project is the reconstruction of Winona Drive. Much like other road reconstruction investments, this aging road needs a complete overhaul including road resurfacing, and water and sewer infrastructure. Construction is planned for 2025 at a cost of $2,000,000.
The fourth project is revitalization of Civic Square. This exciting project has already begun with the demolition of 6343 Main Street, opening up the future next to the clock tower. Council’s visionary decision to purchase this run down building in 2022 has paved the way for a central community meeting space that when complete, will become an anchor for our historic village area. The cost for this project is $1,500,000.
And lastly, I am excited to announce that our capital budget will include plans for the design phase of a pool expansion at Leisure Centre. With federal and provincial elections looming in the next 18 months, I have seen matching grant application opportunities come across my desk for shovel ready, recreational projects. Our Leisure Services master plan calls for another recreation centre to be built with 2 more pools, but that isn’t scheduled until 2031. We needed a second pool in 2006 when my family moved into town and my kids were taking swimming lessons. They are now in their mid-20s. The demand for pool time has only increased our staff will examine every opportunity possible to secure funding from every possible avenue. Our investment of $1,000,000 for the design of a second pool adjacent to our existing pool is our commitment to getting residents the pool time they want and deserve.
Although we want to continue to deliver for Stouffville families, Canadian towns and cities are struggling to keep up with necessary funding requirements of aging infrastructure. The numbers don’t lie. We are currently projecting a yearly $8M deficit in our asset management plan and without the province opening the Highway 404 corridor for commercial development, or a new financial model for municipalities, that gap will continue to grow. I am very proud that I was elected to the Board of Directors of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) this past May and will use my new position to echo FCM’s call for a new municipal growth framework. FCM is calling upon the federal and provincial governments to double the Canada community building fund to $5B. Without a commercial and industrial tax base of 25% or more, Stouffville’s need for federal investment will only increase. And while I have mentioned our request for the 404, I want to remind everyone here and listening at home, those limited areas for commercial and industrial growth represent the potential of $62M in new commercial tax revenues for Stouffville that would put us on a path for financial self sufficiency.
You will also notice a section at the back of the budget called Front-Ended. As it states, developer front ended financing is a tool that the town has begun to use, and will continue to use into the future to advance growth related infrastructure projects like water and wastewater for housing. Traditionally, a municipality would pay for this infrastructure and developers would pay development charges for the town to recoup those costs. Traditionally, it could take years, sometimes decades to recoup our costs. We have made the decision to turn the model on its head and have the developers pay the cost up front and take DC credits when they pull permits. You will notice this is almost $100M in costs that we will no longer have to save for.
In closing, I want to thank Council and staff again for their partnership to achieve this budget and our collective goals.
Stouffville is no longer the best kept secret in the GTA. People are choosing to call Stouffville home – for their families, for their investments and for their futures. And now, with the Town being named one of the best places to work in Canada, the future is brighter than ever.
Thank you.
To watch the presentation visit and click Item 12.1 https://pub-townofws.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=d69ed5a2-e85e-4c6c-abb0-6fb697239deb&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English&Item=43&Tab=attachments
For more information on the budget visit: https://townofws.ca/town-hall/budget-and-finances/capital-and-operating-budget/
