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Mono trims tax increase proposal to under 14 per cent

November 20, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS, LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE REPORTER

Deliberations for next year’s budget present some tough decisions for Mono council.

At the beginning of the annual budget process, municipal staff are asked to prepare a tally of their departmental priorities, the infrastructure to be replaced or maintained, and anticipated expenditures.

“Needless to say, the list of wants is usually greater,” Mayor John Creelman said. “In fact, I can guarantee you it’s always greater than the capacity of our taxpayers to address.”

So council begins the process of weighing those wishlist items against the municipal purse’s capacity. After the Nov. 12 meeting, town staff were presented with proposed cuts to expenditures.

Les Halucha, the town’s treasurer, said in a report that those proposed deletions totalled about $1.9 million from the draft 2026 capital and operating budget.

“Based on council’s historical decisions on budget cuts, the expenditure cuts focused on reserve contributions for future projects and capital projects that could be deferred one more year,” Halucha wrote.

The budget’s first draft offered a 15 per cent tax increase to ratepayers.

After discussion, suggested budget cuts reduced the initial increase and yielded a proposed 13.7 per cent tax increase for ratepayers. That increase would represent an extra $378.03 to the average Mono residence or $31.50 per month.

“It’s always a challenge to try and assure everyone that we’re not going to have a 50 per cent tax increase,” Creelman said.

Councillor Melinda Davie said it was her understanding that the budget’s first draft, the one proposing a 15 per cent tax jump, wasn’t a wishlist. Rather, she said, it was to be a budget that listed absolute needs.

Creelman said it was no different than in previous years.

“The first run at it shows everything that staff believes needs to be attended to,” the mayor said. “Clearly that was high, as it was last year.”

But items were identified that could be deferred until next year’s budget, he said.

Halucha said the province has been cutting grants on which many municipalities depend to meet infrastructure needs. Two such grants are the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund and the Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund.

“Not much of a partnership as they’re cutting the grant,” Halucha said.

In fact, if the province had kept those grants at 2022 funding levels, Mono would have had an extra $664,000 more to work with this year, he said. Those grants were again cut for 2026.

“So there is that pressure on us for not receiving provincial grants,” Halucha said.

To further the hurt, he said the town received a letter from the Ontario Provincial Police stating the maximum increase in policing services would be 11 per cent over last year.

“At this point I have budgeted the 11 per cent in case we do get the worst case scenario,” Halucha said.

There are cost increases across the board, basically.

And those external factors are difficult to control, Halucha said.

Resident Wayne Evans said he can appreciate the financial pressures under which the municipality struggles.

“I think we have to look at each line item and we have to start cutting stuff,” he said. “The recreational budget. I don’t know why I’m paying for others to play tennis or pickleball. That should be user fee (based).”

Residents who use such facilities should pay for them, according to Evans.

“I don’t come to the town and say pay for my recreation,” he said.

An outdoor chess table at $5,000 drew Evans’ laughter.

“Everybody’s cutting,” he said. “We’re cutting personally at home, and the town has to as well.”

Creelman said “a great many” user fees have been increased.

David noted the reality that Mono faces in offsetting service costs through user fees.

“User fees are never going to cover the price of the services that we provide,” Davie said. “So there are just some things that we need to collectively all pay for.”

Creelman said there could be two more budget meetings to come before the final spending plan is finalised.

“I know individual members of council have things that they want to probably cut from the budget,” he said. “I know I do. I know of other areas that are going to receive great scrutiny. I suspect the proposed increase will go down. By the same token, it’s not inconceivable that there would be arguments that we spend more money on various things.”

“I think that we’re in a position where we’re forced into examining opportunities to introduce change,” Coun. Elaine Capes said.

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