Most of you have already received your municipal property taxes for 2024 and are aware that for next year, there is a city wide 3.9% increase for residential properties. Why 3.9%? Let me explain.
The first important fact to know is that all municipalities MUST present a balanced budget, meaning that our expenses must equal our revenues, it is the law. For 2024 both our revenues and expenses will be 181.5M.
We can easily control the tax revenues generated by adjusting your property tax rate from year to year. Thus, once again, why 3.9%? The answer to this question is on the operating expenses side of the balance sheet. Basically, we first need to determine how much more our operating expenses will be in 2024 compared to 2023. This number for 2024 is 8.3M or 4.8%.
Where does the 8.3M in increased expenses come from? The largest increase in expenses is what we commonly refer to as the “Quote Part”. This 5.1M increase represents a 6.4% increase over last year, (63% of total increased expenses) is what we transfer to the city of Montreal for services including police, fire department, water management and a few other smaller services. We have no control or say in this increase, and it has been a point on contention for a long time. The other 27%, or 2.2M is controlled by the city and is primarily related to salaries, waste management and general cost increases such as fuel and outside services.
The graph shows the increase/decrease by category resulting in the 8.3M or 4.8% in increased operating expenses for 2024 versus 2023. This graph is taken directly the Pointe-Claire website.
So, we now need to find 8.3M in new revenue (operating income) to meet our legal requirement of a balanced budget.
Our largest source of revenue is clearly taxes (89% in 2023) and most of the other categories of revenue are estimates based upon history or trends.
From the graph below, we see the increases in operating income by category with the largest increase in dollars is taxes at 6.6M (or 4.2%). This 6.6M of additional revenue, when calculated by household or business, results in your 3.9% increase.
That leaves 1.7M (8.3M – 6.6M) of additional operating income attributed to other sources of revenue, which are once again, estimations based upon prior history or trends.
Thus, based upon the information provided above, we have determined how much more we need to spend in 2024 and taken measures to make sure that matching extra revenues are generated, resulting in a legal municipal budget.
In closing, I have tried to make this as simple as possible to explain, but if have any additional questions, you may always reach out to me at ericstorky@gmail.com.
I have also included the link below to the city website where the full presentation can be found.
https://www.pointe-claire.ca/content/uploads/2023/12/2024-presentation_budget-1.pdf