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Simcoe County Council approves 2024 budget

December 7, 2023   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

The County of Simcoe approved a $774 million budget on Nov. 28, focusing on the resources necessary to maintain existing services and address significant growth throughout the region. 

The 2024 budget also includes strategic allocations that enable the County to continue to invest in services and assets such as infrastructure, long-term care, paramedic services, affordable housing, the Lake Simcoe Regional Airport, waste collections, transit, economic development, tourism, and enhancements to road work.

At the direction and approval of County Council, residents will see a 1.7 per cent increase in operating and a 2 per cent increase in infrastructure and asset management expenses on the County portion of their municipal property taxes in 2024. This represents an impact of approximately $10.69 per $100,000 property assessment across the region.

Around $212 million of the County’s budget comes from Simcoe County residential property taxes, and the remaining amount for other funding streams.

The County continues to be impacted by inflation, rising costs of construction, CPI, supplies, insurance and other commodities.

Because of the pressures families were facing during the lockdowns and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the County had previously held a modest tax increase over that time. The increase was held at zero per cent in 2021. This reduced some of the financial flexibility the County of Simcoe once had.

The financial impact of the provincial blue box program and Bill 23 – Building More Homes Faster Act are not fully known at this time but will have a more significant impact on future budgets.

“With inflation and cost of living increasing, County Council and staff worked hard to limit the impact of this budget on our residents, while ensuring we have the ability to continue to address the challenges in our communities, and also to meet the needs of growing regional service demands,” said Simcoe County Warden Basil Clarke. “Council has approved a responsible budget that maintains funding for affordable housing buildings, provides opportunities to grow transit, enhances our road network, invests in long-term care and paramedicine and enables strategies that further support our economy and businesses. Every tax dollar counts and allows us to continue building up Simcoe County.”

The County maintains a strong financial position, having received an AA+ long-term issue credit rating from S&P Global Ratings – a provider of high-quality market intelligence in the form of credit ratings and research.

Budget highlights include:

• Total County operating and capital expenditures for 2024 – $774 million.
• Long term care homes and seniors’ services – $124 million
• Paramedic Services – $72 million
• Children services – $109 million
• Community services – $29 million
• Social housing – $101 million
• Ontario Works – $71 million
• Transportation and engineering – $80 million
• Solid waste management – $81 million

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