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The Budget is out and you can read Windsor Star, CBC and AM800 stories respectively for a high level summaries. Many of the big-ticket items are listed in those articles.

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Having gone through all of the documents – here is what I see.

A Few General Comments.

The Magic Number

The less than 3% increase is a surprise but to be honest my gut had it coming in closer to 4%. The announced 12% increase was an exercise is poorly constructed political theatre and fearmongering as no sensible mayor would put that forward. Getting it down to this number is the critical challenge. Here are hints of bone being hit with looking at some of the not recommended investments.

Although final amounts are not yet set, I don’t expect to see a major increase but there could be some tweaking.

Budget as a Whole

What I do see in this budget are two things:  

First the systematic nature of the process of budgeting. Looking back at the 2024 budget documents and my blog post this budget largely rolls over from last year. There is no vision beyond the status quo in most cases (some outliers outlined below). The document is uninspired there is no broader strategic purpose to this budget beyond the march South East. In many cases and where items are linked to strategic plans (say bike lanes) they are going through the motion – $100k for bike lanes that will go somewhere aligned to the plan with few specifics.

Second, the Capital Budget is a bit of a mess in my opinion (details below). Most of the budget is a roll over from last year (as is normal) but we are doubling our investment in roads, but we aren’t fixing more of the roads that impact existing residents daily. We aren’t going to get more traffic calming or pothole fixing from this budget, all the money this year is going to build out infrastructure at the fringes of our city, and it is all happening now IMO due to bad planning and forecasting. We are spending more than ever but also not really.

Next year’s budget as an election year budget is already shaping up to be a “good one”. I feel like many of the capital projects that are moving now – $19M to help build a Costco means an important ribbon cuttings next year right before the election.

On Transit

Activate Transit Windsor Essex has done a great job of summarizing the budget impacts on Transit so I would encourage you to go there for more details. You can sign their petition as well!

That being said, I do think on one item there is a deeper conversation needed and that is the Tunnel Bus, which could be killed during this process. The mayor is correct that this is a specialized service that is subsidized by Windsor taxpayers but what has been missing from this conversation is the regional component.

On Lions game days, how many riders of the special event buses are from Windsor? What about when the Leaf’s play the Red Wings? Is there an opportunity to have the county to contribute to the service (even in a small way) as a basis for building regional transit investments. As tickets now must be purchased in advance for special event buses, why not require an address line and for non-Windsorites charge an additional $10 as an “out of town rider”.

Another option, the hotel accommodation tax is going up in this year which will support Tourism Windsor Essex and Pelee Island. As TWEPI often sells proximity to Detroit as a basis for its marketing and trys to piggyback on Detroit event a – Two County Tourist destination. Wouldn’t using a portion of that tax to support special events buses in Detroit that fill up Windsor hotels be a good use of funds? We sponsor the Grand Prix in Detroit, should TWEPI help get people there? Using the hotel tax this way out of town residents staying in hotels use the tunnel bus and subsidize this service?

One thing that hasn’t been talked about is the transit service plan (Pg 67 of Recommended). This change was championed last year by a proposed amendment by Councillor K. MacKenzie and Constante if my memory is correct. It sees the elimination of the school specific special buses and the deployment of those buses to over capacity routes in South Windsor and enhancement to neighbourhood routes. Whether you see this as an enhancement or cut depends on your perspective, but it will see more buses on key routes at no additional cost forecasted. Does this offset other cuts and or the failure to implement new services (see example below) or not creating a new bus replacement reserve (page 356 not recommended), not in my opinion over all transit needs more investment no matter how you look at it.

Recommended Items (Note page numbers are budget page numbers, not PDF)

Recommended items can be cuts or investments on specific items in the budget to reach the current municipal levy impact. There are 21 in-camera recommended items in the operational budget. We don’t know what the item due to the identifiable nature of the elimination on specific staff. These items often came at the recommendation of the various finance committees and in turn have been accepted by the Mayor.

User Fees: Going Up – numerous

A range of fees have been pegged to go up – most inline with inflation. Transit, building permits, tax information, building inspections, legal fees, parks and facilities and more. The rental license fee is interesting the item noting:

I wonder what the total impact of the building fees (and forthcoming development charge changes) are going to have on home construction. Overall, if you interact with the city, it will be more expensive to do so.

Salary Recoveries: Several

A major theme of this budget is the cost recovery of specific roles based on baking their costs into user or services fees. Some of the increases outlined above, are to help pay for a clerk or manager salary and take them off the levy. Several Accounting and Building department roles are now supported through user fee-based cost recoveries. The risk of this sort of structure is that if there is a slowdown in fees, it could put the city in a deficit position for some roles.

Increase to the Pathway to Potential Revenue Budget – Pg 61 and 278

The City/Region poverty reduction strategy is getting an extra $400,000 which will make an extra $800,000 in revenue for Transit Windsor! The $400,000 is going to the expansion of the transit pass program where users pay 50% of the cost of a pass thus generating a total revenue to Transit Windsor of $800,000.

Transit Windsor has historically sold an average of 4488 affordable passes annually. Transit Windsor is estimated to sell approximately 13,606 passes in 2024 under this program with $56.35 funded by P2P and the client paying $57.70 per month.

Some of this increase in demand is likely due to the ending of Ontario Work Subsidies for transit passes that were cut last year by the province. The numbers here are interesting as it gives a snapshot of the number low-income passes in circulation in Windsor.

New Storm-Water Incentive Programs – pg 184

A new program funded through the Stormwater Fee – 500 – $125 rain barrel rebates and 200 native trees available for free planting on private property.

Parking Fee Adjustments for Parking Lots, Meters, and Garages – Pg 232

Metre parking extended from 6pm-9pm, lot parking fees extended to midnight. It will be interesting to see if this makes it thought this year as the effort to get people to go downtown via Strengthen the Core. Past efforts to implement longer parking metre times have been pushed back in the past. I suspect a similar effort

Not Recommended Items (Note page numbers are budget page numbers, not PDF)

Not recommended items are a combination of not spending on new specific things or not ending specific existing programs/staff/service. I have glossed over many of the outlandish requests – close pools and libraries, eliminate summer students etc. as those are not going to be approved and are only there as a demonstration to a path to zero. 26 items are in-camera which represents a program elimination or staffing reduction that is not recommended. We don’t know what the item due to the identifiable nature of the elimination on specific staff.

New Service: Route 250 (Rhodes/Twin Oaks/NextStar Industrial) – Pg 361

This was a route that was approved in 2024 but was not implemented. The capital funding was set aside, and the net cost of the project would not be any new dollars from my understanding of the report, but it is still not recommended. The request for a new bus was approved in 2024.

This new route would add a total of 5,865 additional annual service hours – no new costs, more service, yet not recommended…. I am confused. My only thought is the massive amount of construction planned in this area for 2025 would disrupt this route too much. I guess the battery plant doesn’t need a bus!

Establish Budget for Corporate Online Engagement Tool – Bang the Table – Pg 369

This is the Let’s Talk Windsor Portal on which the expressions of interest for housing have been advertised; storm water financing information shared, Strengthening the Core progress has been tracked and numerous other consultations held. This was a 2-year pilot project started in 2022 and until Sept 2024 and was extended to September of 2025.  

I can’t see any onetime funding request which would mean in September of 2025 it would go away or admin would have to comeback then and ask for another year by year allocation? As someone who has criticized the city for its consultations processes in the past, this tool is actually a good one and is one that could probably be leveraged more. For $38,000 we could keep this tool going – this is scrapping the bottom of the barrel in terms of budget cuts when you are probably going to fund it in the summer anyways.

Increase to Temporary Hourly Wages Per New Collective Agreement – pg 419

How much do you not care about the library – not only are you recommending to not set aside funds for wage increase linked to the minimum wage going up, but you couldn’t be bothered to update the paragraph description on the budget item from last year budget request.

New User Fee – Garbage Bag Tags – pg 482

Establishing a fee if you are putting more than 1 garbage bin out at the streets. Many municipalities have a similar fee system where you must buy a tag or sticker to put on your extra garbage bin. With the forthcoming organic waste diversion coming this would be a tool to encourage residents to recycle more and once organic waste collection in place it would also encourage that. I grew up in Tillsonburg Ontario where there was a $2 per bin fee each week.

Obviously this fee would have some pushback as it is a fee that impacts everyone and be a headache to implement – particularly near the college and university – but it would be good for the environment and raise ~$2 million that could be put towards other waste reduction programs.

Additional Funding for Emergency Rent Assistance – pg 534

A big-ticket item requesting $2.5 million to support households staying housed – of this amount $30,000 was to be spent streamlining the application and intake system. This is a fundamental investment in the housing crisis and supporting those most vulnerable in our community.

With the relocation of the Mission and H4 now on hold the math is pretty simple new transitional units are unlike to come online and who knows when new affordability units will become available.

Agencies, Boards and Committees

This table sums it up well:

Solid Waste, Housing and Police all getting big increases. Invest Windsor Essex as a new CEO steps in for 6 months (?) getting a budget cut. Everything else pretty status quo which means it is really a cut in real terms due to inflation.

Capital Budget

So much growth! But when you control for inflation you see something else. Standard inflation in Ontario between April 2019 and November 2024 was 26%. This means that when you control for purchase power the 2019 investment in Sustainable services was the 2025 (almost) equivalent of $106,876,370. So, the increase in real dollars is actually 28%, which is barely over the rate of inflation during this period!

You also must recognize that municipal inflation has been much higher than standard household inflation as municipal construction costs have gone up significantly. So on a project for project, dollar for dollar basis, I question the value of these numbers.

When we look at the how the budget is broken down from a capital perspective the categories are actually a little deceiving. For example in the Non-Discretionary Investments and/or Pre-Commitments you find a number of 100% growth related activities which are purely service enhancement. Yes they were probably pre-committed in past years but why there and not in another category. The Enhanced Service Levels Investments is actually titled Enhanced Service and Non Infrastructure Investments in some cases you have non-infrastructure things being counted in that category – padding the total.

As I mentioned above, I feel like most of this budget is locked into non-discretionary investments which it is.

If we compare this to the 2024 prediction for the 2025 Capital budget, we see a few trends:

You can see the jump in capital budget this year – so can I. Next year’s capital budget is expected to be $45 million less!

First the inflation numbers are a crude underestimate. Municipal inflations at least double standard  CPI the estimate that I have provided is likely under estimated the inflationary impacts. In many cases the actual dollar amounts didn’t go up between year to year so the middle column is actually and estimate of lost purchasing power as a constant budget item of $50,000 per year for maintenance is buying 2% less in this budget.

A few things are driving the growth in this budget – most of which are East Windsor. The new Banwell Overpass on EC-Row – $22.5M of new provincial money this year and next! The city is also invest in the North Forest Glade Secondary Plan servicing to the tune of 19M – so we can build another Costco! $15M for CR 42 and Lauzon Parkway work towards the 401 where the province is doing an EA on a new overpass (probably still a few years out). A second Lauzon Parkway Project went from ~$5.5 M in the 2024 budget to $34.5 million in this years budget.

On the economic development file we are building out Airport lands to the tune of over $30m over the next 2 years for what I assume are Battery Plant spin offs. This will hopefully backfill in areas off of Rhodes drive but require a new road, sewers, storm water etc.

At the same time local road improvement budget has not significantly increased (less than $1M), the sidewalk repair budget is unchanged, minor road deficiency program 300k more than 2024. This past summer/fall we had councillors asking about why traffic was such a problem in the city. This year is probably going to be worse.

It is also interesting that transfers to Capital reserves are 0 this year, in 2024 projected at $1.675 M per year for the next decade. Contributions to reserves don’t’ begin again until 2028 at $40,000 until 2032 until it rises to $1.5M. How is this fiscally responsible? We keep saying we want to be good fiscal stewards but for the next 4 years we aren’t going to save for future capital expenditures when we have a massive infrastructure deficit?

The following are a few specific budget lines that interested me. Most of the capital budget is process based $100k placeholder to replace parks and rec equipment each year etc.

Placeholder for Community Safety & Downtown Revitalization – Pg 5

$800,000 placeholder for Downtown/Strengthening the Core activities. No details are provided on to what kind of capital projects this will be.

Derwent Park – Cricket Pitch – Pg 77

A 100% growth projects to the Parks and Rec department to create a new cricket pitch for $1 million. Was teased in the budget release but I am curious how a project like this ended up here but a project like the Barron Bowl that the community has fundraised for, doesn’t appear anywhere in the budget, years after the City took funds from them for the project that inflation has driven up the costs.

Confidential Recreation & Culture Matter (In-Camera) – Pg 119

Although not impacting this year, there is a $2 million placeholder for 2026. Not sure what it is, did the city get sued about something and I missed it? Is this a deal with the school board for the bandshell? Who knows we might find out next year!

Ward Funds – Pg 133

$275,000 in Ward funds will be distributed this year. Approximately $27,500 per ward – so likely a chance to advocate for small dollar traffic calming, park improvements or enhancements on other projects. The timing for this, 1 year before elections is a bit problematic but at least it isn’t next year.

Confidential Legal Matter (In-Camera) – Pg 173

$10.5 Million – was settled in 2023 council decision with $1.5 million being set aside each year until 2032. Think about what that $1.5 million could be spent on each year other instead of this legal issue. I don’t know if this is just a standing reserve for the City getting sued or if there is actually expenses coming.

H4 Housing Hub – Pg 233

This item made it to the budget without an update as it is still assuming the Wellington site and a $90M price tag. So what are they approving? Luckily $0 are being allocated in 2025 but what about the future years? Shouldn’t this be removed from the budget as there is no longer a location where an estimated building can’t even be imagined?

Corporate Heritage Property Maintenance and Refurbishment – Pg 266

Capital Theater is due for almost $750k of renovations this year, hopefully it doesn’t disrupt too much usage.

Forest Glade North Secondary Plan Area Servicing – Pg 391

This is more or less where the Costco is going to go and we are spending $19M to build out the roads/sewers from Development Charges to pay for it. Growth pays for growth?!?!?! The City is burning through it’s development charge reserves fast…. hence pressure to raise them.