The lights might have to be dimmed on Mississauga’s 2025 budget process as City waits for PCs to download regional services

Mississauga’s municipal officials still do not have a clear picture of the impacts that will determine how much more homeowners have to pay in property taxes for 2025. The final recommendations from the provincial government’s plan to download key services from the Region of Peel are holding up City Hall’s budget process.

All three lower-tier municipalities under the Region’s umbrella are being forced to prioritize spending for 2025, as they wait anxiously for the PCs to determine the future of Peel.

These details likely will not be revealed until February as Queen’s Park prepares to take a two-month break. During Monday’s Mississauga budget committee meeting, Mayor Carolyn Parrish revealed, through correspondence with the City’s director of strategic communications, that a decision on the future of critical services in the region including waste management, water and wastewater, planning and roads, might not come until February 18, forcing council to wait in limbo before deciding how to allocate funding for the coming year.

“February 18 is a long time for us to go before we know what’s coming out of the Province on the downloading for the Region,” she said, requesting that staff send a letter on behalf of council to Premier Doug Ford asking to pause the City’s budget process, “given the unique circumstances of the Region of Peel”, then reopen discussions in February.

“I think we should make an appeal. It seems very fast, it’s much faster than anything we’ve done before and it’s hard for people to keep up with it. We know what we’re doing and I'm quite confident we’ve done a good solid job but the public has to get used to changes and they have to get used to things like this budget.” 

Despite Ford’s promises of transparency for Peel’s taxpayers, the last year and a half has left staff at the Region of Peel, elected officials and residents off balance following the original decision to dissolve the upper-tier municipal government — a plan that was later axed and redrawn to download only specific regional services to the three lower-tier municipalities. While the PCs claimed the new approach would “keep costs down for taxpayers” and “provide certainty and stability for taxpayers” in Peel “while continuing the province’s efforts to provide the best value for taxpayers”, it has done anything but. 

Mississauga City Hall might have to pause budget deliberations. 

(Alexis Wright/The Pointer)

In Mississauga, the City’s elected officials find themselves in a bind, already navigating a substantial tax increase for the year ahead as aging infrastructure and a widely criticized 23.3 percent increase to the Peel Police budget have them bracing for a nearly 10 percent property tax increase at a time when many homeowners are barely hanging on. 

Parrish resigned from the police board Friday over the astronomical budget demand by Chief Nishan Duraiappah, candidly revealing her anger during Monday’s City Hall budget meeting. 

“I don’t agree that we need to stop progress in our city because of something like the police budget,” Parrish fumed. “The police budget is going to take the big hit this year. That’s why I resigned, so I could be critical of it. It’s not one of those things that has been paced in, it’s been thrown in, everything you’ve got, and they’re doing it again next year.

"Fundamentally I don’t agree that we should stop giving our people in our city the best service that we can give them… because of an anomaly on a police service budget. It’s just not right.” 

The massive police increase, which experts, advocates, councillors and residents have called “unjustified”, “unsustainable” and “ludicrous” has added to the complications Mississauga’s elected officials face as they struggle to deliver a local budget that delivers key services, maintains critical infrastructure and accommodates the mandated growth imposed by Ford’s PC government, without crippling homeowners.

Currently, this would require an increase to the City’s budget that would translate to a 3.3 percent hike on the 2025 property tax bill, according to a report presented to budget committee on Monday. With the latest amendments detailed in the document, homeowners are now facing a 9.3 percent increase in total for 2025, when the Region of Peel and City Hall budgets are blended — nearly five times higher than the current rate of inflation in the province. And this assumes the education portion of the tax bill, dictated by the provincial government, will not go up (it has remained flat for years). The unprecedented police budget increase, $144.1 million extra, if approved by regional council, alone represents almost half of the provisional 9.3 percent increase for Mississauga homeowners. 

The City is moving to hold off on any final budget approvals while staff await details from the PC government regarding the downloading of regional services.

Under Ontario’s Strong Mayor Powers, which were granted last year in the name of getting more housing built, municipalities with this controversial governance tool have been legislated to work under strict timelines to get their budgets approved. According to the legislation, after receiving the proposed budget from the mayor, council has a 30-day review period to make amendments. After that, the mayor has 10 days from the end of the council review period to veto any council amendment. From there, within a 15-day period after the veto period, council can override the mayor’s veto of an amendment if two-thirds of members vote to override the veto.

In July, Parrish, through a mayoral directive, delegated the responsibility to staff to prepare the 2025 budget and three-year business plan, under the assumption that she was waiving her strong mayor budgetary powers. The budget was released on October 29, triggering the 30 day amendment process. The deadline for final amendments is Wednesday, November 27. If any amendments are vetoed, Council has until December 24 to meet and vote to override the mayoral veto.

In a letter obtained by The Pointer and dated November 25, Parrish requested the Premier’s “urgent assistance to grant an extension to the budget timelines” outlined under the Municipal Act for the City’s 2025 budget “so that we can make the right decisions for our property taxpayers.”

“Given the pending decisions from the Province on Bill 112 and downloading of Regional services, and our request to create a more equitable Peel Police funding formula (Parrish has requested that the Province endorse a more accurate and even split, arguing, based on data City staff have analyzed, that Mississauga would pay $86.3 million to effectively subsidize Brampton’s police bill in 2025 because of a mismatched and outdated formula) we need to extend our 2025 Budget timeline to ensure we make the right decisions for Mississauga property taxpayers based on the right information,” the Mayor wrote. The letter also highlights the City is already anticipating the downloading of regional roads “will result in significant savings for Mississauga property taxpayers of at least $30 million.”

Monday’s staff report noted that, “Should there be any in-year budget and tax levy changes in early 2025, such as those resulting from Bill 112 and Bill 185 amendments from the Province of Ontario, those changes can still be incorporated into the calculation of the 2025 tax bill, as long as they are approved prior to the approval of the Final 2025 Tax Ratios, Rates and Due dates report that will be presented to Council in April 2025.”

While the mayor is authorized to initiate and prepare in-year budget amendments once the 2025 budget is passed, Parrish’s letter argued, “this is not ideal and is confusing to residents and taxpayers.”

A provincially appointed Transition Board has been responsible for providing recommendations on the possible transfer of specific services currently provided by the Region, to the three lower-tier municipalities. Downloading regional roads, water and wastewater, planning currently handled by Peel and waste management could significantly alter the budget City Hall has already prepared.  

What remains unclear is what will happen to the City’s finances once the recommendations from the provincially appointed Transition Board are released, leaving Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon in a holding pattern while they try to plan for their future. The major question beyond what the  potential downloading of services will look like, is what the financial implication will be.

The Region of Peel has recently forecasted that its budget will increase by 12.5 percent in 2025 which, if approved, would represent a 6 percent jump for residential property taxpayers in Mississauga (who cover a larger portion of the regional budget compared to Brampton and Caledon property owners). Combining the Region’s forecasted increase with the City’s proposed tax increase, and assuming a flat amount for the education portion, Mississauga’s residential property owners face a total impact of 9.3 percent extra on their bill for 2025, according to the latest projections from staff. 

With the proposed amendments, Mississauga homeowners would pay roughly $228 (up from the initial projection of $184) on average (using an assessed value of $730,000) more for property taxes next year—up from a $150 increase in 2024. This does not include the Region's portion or the separate bill to pay for the water utility, which is not part of the property tax. The Region of Peel is proposing a utility rate increase (the water bill) of 5.9 percent for 2025. Combined with the cost of the Region's budget increase, the total represents an extra $383 for the average homeowner, meaning a resident in Mississauga with a home assessed at $730,000 will pay more than $600 extra for property taxes and water in 2025, before adjusting for any changes resulting from the downloading of regional services.

That could drive the City’s budget and the tax increase even higher if Mississauga must take on more staff and other bureaucratic functions currently under the Region’s jurisdiction, to deliver the services and maintain the infrastructure that are expected to be downloaded.

Although the City’s 2025 budget document reports “there are no anticipated budget or staffing increases in Mississauga’s 2025 budget” related to the downloading of planning work currently done at the Region, the impacts of the other services are still unknown. “The City will continue to work with the Province on the review of the remaining services while awaiting recommendations from the Transition Board,” which are anticipated to be released in the coming months. 

A provincial government spokesperson confirmed to The Pointer in June that the Municipal Affairs Ministry has “received interim recommendations from the Peel Region Transition Board” and “are reviewing the interim report and look forward to receiving the final report due to the Minister in [the] summer.” Since then, the PCs have not said when these final recommendations will be delivered. “Discussions with the municipalities and the region are ongoing.” 

Meanwhile, in what has been a roller coaster couple of years, Mississauga’s council members will have to wait a little longer before deciding how much more their fellow residents will have to pay in taxes, as many continue to struggle with the cost of living in Canada’s seventh largest city. 

Email: [email protected] 

Twitter: @mcpaigepeacock 

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