Windsor city council approves biggest property tax increase in two decades

Windsor city council met Monday to set the 2023 property tax rate, approving an increase of 4.48 per cent.

Council voted 10 to 1 in favour of the operating and capital budgets, with the only dissenting vote coming from Ward 1 Coun. Fred Francis.

The increase will add about $140 onto the average homeowners’ tax bill, according to Joe Mancina, the chief financial officer for the City of Windsor.

“Residents are also facing their own budgetary challenges. I think this strikes a balance of what is considered a reasonable budget,” said Mancina after the eight hour-long meeting.

The number started Monday at 5.27 per cent.

Council managed to whittle that number down over the course of the meeting by cutting some proposed staff additions, approving about $20 million of new spending compared to 2022.

“I think the vast majority of city council has understood that within the time of high inflation, 40 year high inflation, they managed to get this budget well under the rate of inflation and without cutting services,” said Mayor Drew Dilkens. “At the end of the day, I think that's what residents expect. And we're prudent, that we’re fair and reasonable, and we still deliver the services that they expect.”

That increase will be accompanied by an increase to your sewer surcharge as well. The rate is expected to increase by about $75 on each homeowner’s water bill in 2023, a number that Dilkens said is necessary to fund important anti-flooding infrastructure and will help to reduce home insurance rates in the city.

“One way or another, that work has to happen and the benefit accrues to the property taxpayer who has who will have lower homeowner insurance rates,” he said.

Also of note, the 418X bus line, which council didn’t support last year was approved by council this year.

The elected officials also said no to increasing the hours for metered parking from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., said no to patio fees and said no to increasing recreational user fees.

“We're going to make sure we don't raise user fees for recreation services in the City of Windsor for 2023,” said Dilkens, noting that was a campaign promise this past election.

Some around the table wanted to see the increase at or below three per cent, including Francis.

He pitched a plan to bring that number down considerably but didn’t get council support.

“I think we could have went down further. But you know, it wasn't the will of council to go down further,” said Francis. “So I voted against it because I thought we could have done more.”

Compared to other Ontario cities of similar size Windsor is still well below average with this property tax increase.

“Congratulations on being very prudent this year, and coming in with a budget increase that is still 2.4 per cent below the rate of inflation,” said Dilkens.

“It's a good number, even though it's a high number, it's a responsible number.”