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Let's Talk Budget - A Financially Healthy Town
Kingsville currently has the 2nd lowest property tax rates and lowest combined water and sewer rates in Essex County In 2024, the Town raised approximately $24 Million in property taxes...Read more
Let's Talk Budget - What is a Municipal Budget?
What is a Municipal Budget? A budget is a plan for money coming in and money going out. Municipalities are required to pass a balanced budget. Your tax bill includes separate tax levies, Municipal, County and Education. The Town of Kingsville only receives $0.54 of each tax dollar you pay. Money comes into the municipality from three sources: property taxes, grants and subsidies and user fees. There are two building blocks of a municipal budget: operating and capital. Operating is for all the day to day expenditures, and just like your bills, ours go up with inflation. Capital is for your major outlays, like new vehicles, renovations, etc. There are many competing priorities for your tax dollars, and Council and Administration always strive to put forward responsible budgets that will meet the short and long-term goals of the community.
Let's Talk Budget - The Relationship Between Property Values and Property Tax
Property taxes are based on the assessed value of a home. If all assessments go up equally, everyone pays the same.
If all assessments do not go up equally, there's a redistribution of the tax.
If the town's cost to provide services increases, the municipality may choose to increase the tax rate. When this happens, everyone pays their share of that increase.
Let's Talk Budget - A Financially Healthy Town
Kingsville currently has the 2nd lowest property tax rates and lowest combined water and sewer rates in Essex County.
In 2024, the Town raised approximately $24 Million in property taxes
When assessing the health of a municipality, the 3 most important factors are debt, reserves and condition of infrastructure.
To keep infrastructure in state of good repair, responsible Asset Management Planning is key. This requires us to put money aside today, for large expense down the road.
Let's Talk Budget - 2025 Budget Pressures
When creating a municipal budget, there is a balancing act. We need to make sure our revenue matches our expenses, and we ALSO need to ensure a good balance of services provided.
There are a number of External pressures, which the municipality has limited ability to control - like vendor contracts with essential service providers and downloading services from other levels of government.
Internal pressures include ensuring we've set aside enough money for lifecycle funding to ensure sustainability of our infrastructure and other major assets, and expectations for increased service levels. One last point about municipal budgets is that unlike other levels government, there is currently no built-in inflation protection. Since 2021, property value assessments have been frozen, leaving municipalities with no choice but to raise the tax rate just to account for inflation alone.