Sudbury council approved 2025 budget with 4.8% tax increase

Sudbury city council approved its 2025 municipal budget Tuesday evening with a tax increase of 4.8 per cent.

In 2023, council voted in favour of a multi-year budget, which meant the approval of a two-year operating budget and a four-year capital budget.

Sudbury city council approved its 2025 municipal budget Tuesday evening with a tax increase of 4.8 per cent. (Photo from video)

"By provincial law, we can table a two-year … budget, but we have to reapprove it every year," said Ward 9 Coun. Deb Mcintosh, who chairs the finance and administration committee.

The approved operating budget is $800.2 million for 2025, while the 2025-2027 capital budget amounts to $652.3 million.

"Last year we approved for 2025 a 7.3 per cent increase in property taxes or in the budget, actually. And of course, we tabled a motion to ask staff to come back with reductions to get us down to 4.9 per cent,” Mcintosh said.

"Yesterday afternoon we landed at 4.8 per cent. So, we came within where we wanted to come."

The property tax increase includes 1.6 per cent increase for municipal services, 1.4 per cent increase for Greater Sudbury Police Service, which includes hiring 10 officers, 0.3 per cent increase for other service partners and a 1.5 per cent special capital levy for roads and infrastructure.

Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre said priorities are community safety and roads.

"We've been hearing loud and clear, invest in our roads, invest in our infrastructure. So, we’re doing that," Lefebvre said.

"The other one is community safety. We hear that, as well. It's a challenge in our community, like across the province –actually, across the country. And so, we need to respond to that."

David Robinson, retired economics professor, said he doesn’t agree with everything in the budget, but said it’s not unreasonable. He said he’d prefer to see the city include support for Laurentian University and climate action, rather than the downtown events centre.

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“Council's dealing with the messes it's inherited and its commitments to certain projects that might be a disaster that it is not thinking ten years out when Sudbury's going to be in a different situation," Robinson said.

"But I understand the challenge of council because it's caught between decisions in the past that mean that we've got a lot of debt, a lot of infrastructure to rebuild, a lot of projects that should have been done long ago, and taxpayers who don't want to pay for it."

Additional information on the budget can be found here.