Valérie Plante will unveil this morning the largest tax increase since 2010, in order to cover a new increase in expenses for the City of Montreal.
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According to what Le Journal learned yesterday, the city’s total budget will be set at $6.76 billion in 2023, or $300 million more than in 2022.
The mayor will make this budget public this morning in the company of her president of the executive committee, Dominique Ollivier.
This is a second consecutive increase in spending of more than 4.6%. Last year, the Plante administration had already increased spending by $300 million, after a year of freeze due to the pandemic.
This brings the increase in spending to nearly 30% since Valérie Plante came to power in 2017 (see box).
According to information obtained by Le Journal, the Plante administration has also decided to increase its capital expenditures, namely in long-term projects that require borrowing money.
The City plans to invest $22 billion in infrastructure over the next 10 years. Last year, the same figure was $19.54 billion.
Planned police hires
Police-related spending is among those that will increase, we also learned.
The budget of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) will be increased by $63 million, or just over 8%.
However, only $15.5 million will be devoted to the hiring of 123 new police officers planned for 2023.
Most of the increase in spending will be used to cover the increase in salaries for current police officers.
- Listen to Francis Gosselin’s economic column at the microphone of every day on the waves of :
Significant tax increase
The highest inflation experienced in Canada in nearly 40 years brings its share of additional expenses and the City of Montreal is no exception.
At the beginning of November, Mayor Valérie Plante told La Presse that she was trying to “find a balance” and that the average tax increase would be between 2% and 8%.
According to the information we have obtained, the tax increase has been limited to 4% for the central city.
However, the increase in the overall bill announced today should exceed 4% including borough taxes, which will make it the largest increase since 2010 (5.3%).
They already unveiled their own tax increases earlier this fall, which affect a small part of the tax bill. These vary between 2% (Montréal-Nord) and 20% (LaSalle) with an average of 8.8%.
Contacted to respond to information from LogMayor Valérie Plante’s office did not come back to us yesterday.
– With the collaboration of Charles Mathieu
- The City of Quebec also unveiled yesterday a steep tax increase for taxpayers in the capital in 2023. At 2.5%, this is the largest increase in 15 years. The price of city services has also been indexed to inflation, ie 5.6%.
The City’s budget since Projet Montréal came to power
- 2017 (last year of Denis Coderre) – $5.2 billion
- 2018 – $5.47B
- 2019 – $5.71B
- 2020 – $6.17B
- 2021 – $6.17B
- 2022 – $6.46B
- 2023 – $6.76B
Source: City of Montreal