After a marathon budget session that went past midnight, regional council is still not finished working through a list of motions to get next year's property tax hike within range of 8 per cent.
The final straw came when Coun. Berry Vrbanovic tabled a motion asking staff to limit expenses in various departments to an overall 5 per cent increase, resulting in estimated savings of about $7 million.
Vrbanovic said he did an analysis of each department to determine expenses in next year's budget. Supplies increased 5.7 per cent overall, equipment went up 26.2 per cent, maintenance went up 32.2 per cent, professional fees and services went up 5.8 per cent, communications 16.9 per cent, travel saw a 21.8 per cent increase, and facility occupancy charges increased 15.8 per cent.
The increases averaged out at 9.32 per cent or $17.2 million, he said.
"That is significantly more than inflation," Vrbanovic said, suggesting staff figure out on its own how to apply those cost reductions at a later date.
Councillors Pam Wolf and Doug Craig weren't happy with the last-minute motion and wanted more information from staff before voting on any of it.
Craig said the process was "creating chaos."
"This is not how you do a budget properly. I can't support any of this at this hour."
He urged council to stop the meeting and ask staff to come back with more information. "This is terrible," he said
That resulted in the final meeting being suspended and pushed to Dec. 20 at 9 a.m. followed by a special council meeting to approve the budget.
At that point in the night, more than 15 hours after the meeting began, staff provided an update on where reductions, approved expansions and new council motions for funding had landed.
The meeting suspended with the 2025 regional budget increase at 10.39 per cent.
Combined with the approved police budget increase of 8.56 per cent, it leaves the overall tax increase at 9.83 per cent.
Council started the day with a proposed preliminary 10.45 per cent change in property taxes based on $832 million in revenue and a tax levy of $582 million.
That's down from an 12.4 per cent tax hike proposed in the draft operating budget with proposed expansions and amendments decided in budget committee meetings over the last few months.
Earlier in the day Craig urged council to consider extending budget deliberations into the new year. "Time is on our side," he said.
But Chair Karen Redman wasn't convinced, adding she'd need to know new information was forthcoming before agreeing to the deferral. "These are very challenging times and these are very challenging decisions," she said.
"We need to get this done. We've had the time, we've had the opportunity to ask the questions," agreed Coun. Colleen James, adding taxpayers need to know now so they can budget for next year.
Cambridge Mayor Jan Liggett said she fears hiking taxes when a lot of people are on the brink of losing their homes.
She noted a 30 per cent increase in overdue accounts in Cambridge alone and cumulative past due taxes up 56 per cent to almost $40 million.
"That's a lot of money and I suspect around this horseshoe we're all in the same boat," she said. With tariffs coming and "a lot of bad things in the economy right now," people are struggling, she cautioned.
That preceded the debate over what services to cut. Many of the reductions tabled as options to get the budget down by just $5.2 million, or one per cent, impact low-income and vulnerable people the most.
Service reductions
"None of us want to raise taxes, but we cannot choose the most vulnerable in our communities to pay the brunt of not raising the taxes and some of the service cuts we're looking at are unacceptable and I think they're unacceptable to everyone around the table," Coun. Pam Wolf said.
Council debated the 22 service reduction options line-by-line and decided out of the gate it won't reduce service on Route 55 on Grand Ridge in Cambridge.
Wolf said Cambridge is already underserviced and this area is a growing part of the city.
Service on several other routes in Waterloo won't be reduced either.
There will, however, be an increase on the monthly transit pass for regular users, rising $8 instead of $4 and taking the fee to $104 instead of $100. But those using the Affordable Transit Program Pass won't see an increase.
Council won't cancel garbage collection in downtown cores.
Liggett said in Cambridge it's critical because the city has tree wells where rat infestations have grown because of people going through the garbage left out on the street for pick up.
"Without that garbage pick up, it's just going to be more, of all day long with the rats on the streets," she said.
Council also won't cancel garbage cans at bus stops. "There's enough waste around our community and I don't want to see more ending up on the streets," Vrbanac said.
Council will delay the reopening of Doon Heritage Village by a year to save $356,000, despite Liggett's fear it will hurt the business community that benefits from the tourism spinoff from the attraction. Craig agreed, saying it's something "we have to be careful with because it is a gem in the community."
Council didn't support a 10 per cent reduction of child care services.
It also didn't support optioned cuts to dental care services for children and seniors.
Council also didn't support cutting $150,000 in funding to five dependent counselling services. Councillors around the horseshoe highlighted the benefit agencies dedicated to mental health services have had on the community since the pandemic.
Council won't reduce security at encampments and supportive housing.
An option to reduce discretionary spending for OW and ODSP recipients was "roundly defeated" in a unanimous vote after some councillors pointed out the emotional toll of having consider such cuts.
Wolf said it wouldn't just hurt people on OW and ODSP but also staff who would have to face the "heartbreaking" challenge of telling people they are unable to provide help.
She said she knows staff who "don't sleep at night" because of it.
The commissioner of community services, Peter Sweeney, pointed out that OW rates in Waterloo region are below the poverty line and below the "deep poverty line" for many, topping out at about $7,200 a year.
He said the caseload for the program now in Waterloo region is between 17,000 and 18,000 clients, higher than it was before the pandemic
Discretionary benefits like the ones council had the option of cutting support clients by helping to pay for everything from interpretation services, medication and transportation to funeral costs and other essential items.
"We used to be proud of our social safety net. Now we have a net that is full of holes," Wolf said.
"I know we all have good hearts on this council and I know we're all trying to balance a budget but this is not the place to balance it," she said.
Coun. Chantal Huinink broke down in tears after relating how she had to use the program several times.
"The majority of us around this table are privileged people who will not feel these cuts, but I cannot stand or sit behind a regional budget if it's used to make tax rate decreases on the backs of the most vulnerable," she said.
Doug Craig, who asked for a recess following Huinink's statement said his disappointment rests on staff for suggesting these types of cuts in the first place.
"Some of these recommendations staff must know we can't accept. I don't even know why they were even put on the table," he said.
Redman reminded him that staff were asked to look for options to achieve a budget increase of 8 per cent or below.
"I wouldn't point the finger at staff when they were asked to look at things for which we were not mandated to provide but we do."
Following the recess, Coun. Natasha Salonen urged the need for more advocacy to get the province to reassess these programs and provide them with the support they deserve.
Service expansions
After lunch, council looked at recommended staff expansions, many of which are tied to growth and preparing the region for an expected population surge over the next two decades to one million residents.
Expansions will go ahead with the hiring of several new positions, some with impacts to the levy, some funded through reserve funds or user rates. They include jobs like an accessibility ready advisor, IT support, a SCADA specialist, water and wastewater support staff and hydrogeologists.
Council debated hiring 18 temporary full time staff to implement the rollout of the automated cart system for waste management; a move staff consider "critical" to the successful launch of the program. The new staff will be responsible for distributing 320,000 carts before the new automated system is implemented on March 1, 2026. The $2.9 million cost will be covered by a reserve fund and has no impact on the tax levy.
Transit won't get all the staffing requests staff believe are necessary to respond to growth in the system.
There were also several motions from councillors to get through.
Council supported doubling the annual grant to the Food Bank of Waterloo Region to $1.5 million.
They didn't support an a 2.5 per cent increase the region's contribution to Climate WR
The region will hire two affordable housing support staff to help people who are at risk of losing their apartments. One will help ensure the region's 3,000 housing units stay in a state of good repair, while the other will deal with tenant issues around safety and rent payment as the region adds 150 units over the next two years.
One support staff instead of two in Waterloo Region Housing will be hired at a cost of $88,000 to help ensure the "insurability" of Waterloo Region Housing units.
As director of housing services Ryan Pettipiere pointed out, fires and "other things" happening in some of their units are driving up insurance costs for the region. The person hired for the new role will be responsible for going into units to make sure tenants are insured, that they're behaving appropriately and have life necessary safety measures in place.
The plan to add $6.68 million to the Plan to End Chronic Homelessness was reduced to $4.68 million.
That decision came after the Kitchener mayor said he wasn't happy with letting the province or the feds off the hook by putting on the problem entirely on the backs of regional taxpayers. He suggested supporting a third of the expansion and asking upper levels of government for the rest. "I really think we need to put some pressure on the province and feds," Vrbanovic said, adding it would send a strong message.
But Deutschmann said he doesn't think the province would care either way. "I'm not convinced anything we do is going to have an impact on the provincial government, quite frankly. We could just say we're not funding it at all, they wouldn't care."
He proposed to defer setting up a second hybrid shelter location and amending the increase to $4.68 million.
Doug Craig agreed with Deutschann's criticism of the province.
"Our MPPs locally. That's where the question is. What are they doing? They know that we are restricted by the lack of proper funding and we're facing these enormous problems of homelessness and addiction and everything else and we're not hearing from them?"
Not everyone supported the amendment. "Our PIT count suggests we're in a crisis situation" Jim Erb said, urging council to move forward with a plan for a second hybrid shelter. "I don't want us to give up finding a place to house another 50 people."
