After initially maintaining vagueness on the issue, the City of Montreal affirms that it will limit the increase in taxes in its next 2025 budget to the most recent inflation rate, at 1.8%.
Posted at 10:29 a.m.
Updated at 11:19 a.m.
“We want to reassure the population, because people are stressed at the moment. There is an increase in the cost of living, rents, groceries, interest rates. People no longer have any room for maneuver. We want to tell them right away: don’t worry,” said the president of the executive committee and head of finance, Luc Rabouin, at a press conference on Thursday.
Mr. Rabouin thus asserts that he wants to “send a message to the districts”, which will soon have to adopt their local budgets. “Everyone has to make an effort […] and stick to inflation as much as possible,” he said, especially targeting the boroughs “which already have much higher tax rates than others like Montréal-Nord, Anjou and Saint-Léonard.” .
For the moment, no one really knows what will happen at the local level. In recent weeks, several opposition district mayors have denounced the meager increase in transfers to the districts planned for 2025, which will also be 1.8%.
Originally, an initial increase of 1% was proposed, which did not even cover the increase provided for in employee collective agreements according to the Ensemble Montréal party.
All this occurs while since mid-September, the City has said it is considering the possibility of “giving up certain activities” that it undertakes, in a tight budgetary context. It is not yet known which sectors could be affected, but each municipal program will be reviewed. Last year, snow removal was partly done internally by the City to save money. Some 91 positions were also eliminated.
In the short term, the City will have to increase its average contribution by 6% to the Regional Metropolitan Transport Authority (ARTM) to “ensure basic public transport services”, Mr. Rabouin also recalled on Thursday. .
Last week, when she was questioned by The Pressthe Plante administration had initially maintained vagueness on the tax increase that its 2025 budget would contain, the latter having to be presented in November. “1.8%. That’s the inflation rate, but I’m not telling you what the tax rate is,” Mr. Rabouin said at a press conference.
With Philippe Teisceira-Lessard, The Press
