Homeowners in Waterloo Region to pay 9.48 per cent more on region's 2025 property tax bill

Waterloo Region sets its 2025 tax rate increase Waterloo Region's 2025 budget has been approved, but not everyone on council is happy about it. Jeff Pickel explains.

After councillors failed to set Waterloo Region’s 2025 budget in a marathon meeting earlier this month, councillors gathered again on Thursday to try to hammer down what was once a 10.45 per cent property tax hike.

Councillors stayed up late into the night, trying to finalize next year’s budget.

At one point, they had the tax increase down to 9.79 per cent, but by the time everyone left the horseshoe, the rate rose slightly to 9.83 per cent.

Deliberations began again on Friday, with a new figure before council.

“With a levy reduction of $2.642 million, the overall impact on the region’s portion of the tax bill is now 9.89 per cent. When factoring in a police increase of 8.56 per cent, we’re at an overall tax levy impact of 9.48 per cent,” Chris Wilson, the region’s manger of corporate budgets, said during Friday’s meeting.

He explained the 9.48 per cent increase would amount to approximately $241 more per year for the average property in the region. However, the ‘average property value’ was calculated using statistics from 2016, meaning the average property value was valued at $354,500.

‘The provincial government is failing municipalities’

The budget discussion sparked some heated exchanges.

“I think if we’re actually bringing forward a budget of this increase at a fiscally difficult time for so many people when, regardless of what your politics are, we’re seeing federal and provincial governments recognizing that people are hurting and we need to help them here, an increase that’s almost double digit, in my view, is abdicating our collective responsibility,” said regional councillor and Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic. “It makes me sad therefore that, for the second time I think in 40 budgets, that I’ve been part of regionally and municipally, that sadly for the second time I’m going to have to be voting against this budget.”

“There are some good things in this budget without question,” he added. “But the reality is this budget is going to make more people homeless, this budget is going to make life more difficult for people in this region, and I can’t support it in its current form.”

Regional Councillor Robert Deutschmann responded, saying he was surprised by Vrbanovic’s comments.

“I will not accept someone saying we’re going to make more people homeless. We are helping a lot of people. This region works hard to deal with the homeless population. We’re doing everything we can. And as a responsible council we said eight per cent, and we’re just above eight per cent, so we’ve done a good job with this budget. And we’ve taken the steps required in order to responsibly put forward a budget dealing with the issues we deal with. And I hear comments about the provincial and federal government? We spent almost $200 million on provincial initiatives with the local levy. I don’t want to hear about the provincial government doing their job. The provincial government is failing municipalities right now. It’s failing municipalities, it’s failing on the homelessness, it’s failing on those who are drug addicted. Because they’re abdicating their role of assisting us in ensuring we have sufficient funding to deal with the issues. So, if our budget has to be higher, it’s because we have to step in, unfortunately, through the property tax base with our own views, wherever we come from on the political spectrum, and decide who we want to help and how we want to help them. This budget it a reflection of that,” he said.

“My friend wants to talk about working hard? I refer back to that police budget. There was not ‘working hard’ with respect to certain items in that police budget. So, now I’m hearing a different comment about that on our staff. And that’s the issue.”

Regional Councillor Mike Harris also voiced his frustration with the provincial government.

"We're seeing governments announce rebate checks and HST holidays while we're having to decide if we're going to cut dental care for our most vulnerable or providing social housing for homelessness that we can see every day on our streets," Harris said.

Highlights of the budget

Ultimately, the 2025 budget passed with more funding for paramedics, enhancing extreme weather supports for people experiencing homelessness and expanded bus services on overcrowded routes.

However, the budget also included some measures to keep costs down, including delaying the reopening of Doon Village to 2026.