The average Burnaby home could see a property tax bill of $1,854 this summer, an increase of $65 or 3.5%.
A full debate over the city’s budget won’t come until late April, with consultations planned in the meantime, but a provisional budget was presented to city council this week. The proposed financial plan offers a sense of direction for how the city will proceed this year, but it isn’t a final document.
The provisional budget anticipates a combined spending increase of more than 6.1% between the capital and operating budgets, from roughly $766 million to just shy of $813 million.
That would be paid for in part by a 3.5% property tax hike, along with a waterworks fee hike of 1% and a sanitary sewer fee hike of 2%, according to the provisional budget report.
But those hikes wouldn’t cover the full increase in spending. This year, the city anticipates digging into its famously deep reserves, to the tune of nearly $131 million.
This drew some pushback from recent Burnaby Citizens Association defector Coun. Colleen Jordan.
“This mayor, he made a promise to spend the reserves, and you are demonstrating that in spades in this budget,” Jordan said of Mayor Mike Hurley. “I have some very, very serious concerns about where we are going into the future.”
Of the two budgets, the capital budget is currently looking like the largest jump – over 7.2% – while the operating budget increase is looking a bit more tame at around 5.6%.
That’s in part because of investments being made in new infrastructure for growing communities and maintaining existing infrastructure.
Finance director Noreen Kassam told council the city has capital assets totalling $3.9 billion, a large chunk of which includes infrastructure that needs maintaining.
Add onto that an estimated increase of 100,000 people expected to be living in the city in the next 20 years, and the city is investing in infrastructure to accommodate that.
That includes several major projects, such as a pedestrian bridge over Highway 1, a replacement for the Laurel Street works yard, construction of the South Burnaby arena, construction of the Burnaby Lake arena, a significant sidewalks program and EV charging stations.
That 3.5% hike would apply both to businesses and to residential properties, Kassam said, but the number could also drop or increase depending on how the budget is handled in the coming months. The city will be consulting with the public on the provisional budget in the next couple of months before a draft of a full budget draft goes before council for debate on April 27.
The city also anticipates annual property tax hikes of 4% between 2021 and 2024.
The final budget must be submitted to the province by May 15.
