Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe oversees a city council meeting on Mar. 6, 2024.
The City of Ottawa's draft budget for 2025 will be crafted based on the mayor's approach of raising property taxes by 2.9 per cent and exploring an unknown mix of difficult cuts and price hikes on transit.Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe at a city council meeting earlier this year. His broad proposals for approaching the next city budget were approved by about two-thirds of city council on Wednesday.
Many councillors stressed their residents don't want to see big tax hikes, while some underlined the city also needs to ensure no dollar is wasted. The budget is expected to be grim for OC Transpo and the mayor has said the public needs to be aware of the tough, unfair choices that could be required to address the department's $120 million structural deficit.The councillors who opposed the mayor's budget directions argued the city can't even keep up with repairs to sidewalks or community centres and said taxes could go up more to meet the needs of a growing city.Coun.
Catherine Kitts, George Darouze, Matt Luloff and David Brown supported the overall directions, but dissented on the direction related to setting stormwater rates for water bills.
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