The Longueuil residents’ tax bill will rise by 5.6% on average next year. The municipal council adopted the Fournier administration’s 2023 budget on Tuesday evening, which attributes the difficult situation in which Longueuil finds itself to inflation and the tax freezes of recent years.
The City had to juggle a shortfall of $34 million; it therefore allocated a surplus of 9 million and reduced its expenses to limit the tax increase to 5.6 million. Inflation also has a direct effect on the cost of contracts and supplies. “The exercise was particularly difficult,” said Mayor Catherine Fournier. “It is a responsible budget in an inflationary economic context not seen for several decades, and one of the most uncertain. We don’t know what will happen in the next few months. »
To complete its budget of $505.8 million, the City is relying on additional revenue from taxes ($19.2 million), real estate development ($5.9 million) and transfer duties, licenses and permits ( 14.5 million).
For an average single-family property, the average tax bill should reach $3,158 in 2023, an increase of $168.
The vice-president of the executive committee, Jonathan Tabarah, criticized the previous administration for having frozen taxes for three years, thus weakening the city’s finances. “The decision we take today is responsible for several reasons. Among other things, we are under the[indice des prix à la consommation]. We respect citizens’ ability to pay,” he said.
“The tax freezes we had in the past, we will never get them back. […] The biggest myth that exists in municipal politics is that cities make money from rising land values. We don’t make a penny on the increase in the value of houses,” insisted Mr. Tabarah.
The leader of the Longueuil opposition, Jacques Lemire, who voted against the budget, does not share this opinion. According to him, the Fournier administration did not respect citizens’ ability to pay. “The City needs money to survive and provide services. But we have just come out of two years of pandemic. There are people who have lost their jobs,” he said. “We can stretch the elastic, but at some point, we have to stop. »
The City of Longueuil is expecting a decline in transfer tax revenue in the future due to the slowdown in the real estate sector. The Fournier administration therefore hopes to be able to diversify its income in order to reduce its dependence on property tax. To achieve this, it plans to use eco-fiscal tools aimed at excessive drinking water consumption, parking and development charges.