Average Chatham-Kent homeowner to pay $176 more in property tax under 2025/2026 budget

The average homeowner in Chatham-Kent will see their property taxes increase by about $176 during the 2025/2026 fiscal year.

Municipal council on Wednesday recommended a budget increase of 4.99 per cent in the first yearly update to the 2024-2027 multi-year budget. 

Major contributors to the increase are:

• 1.88 of the 4.99 per cent is for increased spending on existing municipal services.

• 2.35 of the 4.99 per cent is for spending on social issues. 

• $4,069,961 will go toward infrastructure spending to cover improvements to roads, drains, bridges and recreation facilities.

"Both council and staff are putting in a great deal of effort to strategically balance inflation, societal challenges and lack of upper-level government funding while ensuring infrastructure and services are maintained and improved for the residents of Chatham-Kent going forward," Mayor Darrin Canniff said in a news release issued by the municipality. 

Municipal staff worked to reduce the projected budget increase from approximately nine per cent to just under five by finding around $6.5 million in savings, said Coun. Brock McGregor, the budget committee chair.

They did it through reductions in operational spending and phasing in spending on items such as the municipality's transitional cabins, he said.

Council also voted to save more money by discontinuing dust suppression on gravel roads.

In addition, council voted to use a quarter of a million dollars from its corporate severance for frustrated contracts reserve fund to reduce the tax levy. At the same time, it voted to transfer both an additional $50,000 from the fund and another $200,000 from the corporate sick provision reserve fund into a different fund and earmark it for possible future physician recruitment incentives. 

The budget does not call for any closures to libraries, rural service centres, arenas or community supports, according to the municipality's news release.

Residents made it clear to council that they did not want to see cuts in those areas, McGregor said. 

The funding allocated to social issues will allow the municipality to address homelessness and housing costs in the absence of financial support from other levels of government, the release said.

"Earlier this year, council endorsed recommendations to move forward with replacing the existing emergency shelter on Murray Street with an emergency transitional cabin program on Park Street at Hyslop Street in Chatham," it explained.

"Staff and council have made and continue to make efforts to secure governmental funding to reduce the growing financial burden on Chatham-Kent taxpayers."