Draft 2025 budget in Lévis: a “proposal” for a 3.3% tax increase

In its “2025 draft budget”, the general management of the City of Lévis proposed to municipal elected officials an overall increase in municipal taxes (property tax and rates) of 3.3% which contrasts significantly with the record increase of 7, 7% recorded in 2024.

This is what we learned on Wednesday morning during a working session available online.

The suggested increase of 3.3% is divided into two portions: 1.7% for the property tax and 1.6% for the increase in rates and taxes for the sectors served. The Lévis administration is proposing two scenarios which are very similar and which would both lead to a jump of 3.3%.

Note that the last word belongs to municipal elected officials, since the formal submission of the Municipality’s 2025 budget will take place on December 9. Only then will the height of the increase in taxes and tariffs be definitively decided. Mayor Lehouillier’s team has an overwhelming majority within the Lévis municipal council.

About a year ago, in the 2024 budget, Lévis residents had to endure a total tax increase of 7.7%, the largest since the 2002 mergers. The increase in property tax was 6%, but it was necessary to add the increase in prices.

Transparency or “communication exercise”?

This work session constitutes an unusual way of doing things for Lévis. In the past, this type of meeting was always held behind closed doors.

Speaking on Wednesday at the start of the session, the mayor of Lévis, Gilles Lehouillier, highlighted his desire “to be as transparent as possible”. According to him, “it’s a first try. We do not claim that the formula is perfect. The budget proposal respects the financial framework that Lévis adopted last June, he added.

Even before the session began, the opposition party, Repensons Lévis, expressed its skepticism by describing the working session as a “communication exercise” by the Lehouillier administration.

Draft 2025 budget in Lévis

Scenario 1 for growth in the tax revenue rate

• Residential (including rates): 3.3% (1.7% general property tax and 1.6% rates and service sector tax)
• Multi-dwellings (6+): 4%
• Commercial : 4%
• Industrial: 4%
• Forestry and agriculture: 3%
• Vacant land served: 4 times base rate

Total revenue: $8,869,000

• Source: General Directorate of the City of Lévis