City councillors held Nanaimo’s property tax increase to slightly below eight per cent for 2025 following discussion of the 2025-29 financial plan at a finance meeting Wednesday, April 16.
The 2025 provisional budget was adopted with a projected eight-per cent hike in January, but this week's report showed a lower 7.7-per cent increase. This year's tax increase amounts to $4,024 for the average home assessed at $787,743, up from $3,760 for the average home assessed at $788,058 in 2024, an increase of $264 per household.
“When reviewing our recent property tax increases it’s important to remember that in the last four years – between 2021 and 2024 – we began implementation of a new fire master plan that added 20 new career firefighters in 2023, we implemented a 12-person community safety officer program, added two community clean teams and added 16 new RCMP members,” said Wendy Fulla, city director of finance. “Council also added other resources to maintain service levels as the city continued to grow and we have seen higher than normal inflationary increases.”
The city’s 2025 budget revenue totals $276.5 million for annual operations and maintenance, projects and infrastructure reserve contributions. The bulk of revenue, 60.9 per cent, is raised through property taxes, with the balance derived from water revenues, fees and charges, government grants, sewer and sanitation revenues, investment income and other sources.
The biggest annual budget items are for RCMP and fire rescue services, parks and recreation, engineering and public works, and corporate services. Fulla said the cost for all city services to property owners is about $7 per day.
The good news for taxpayers in the report is city staff found some savings and revenue increases due to overall decreases in expenditures that saved $73,600. Increased revenue from aquatics and arena fees, programs and rentals as well as fees and programs from recreation programs and services cut costs another $391,000, which revised the property tax increase from eight per cent to 7.7 per cent.
That left council a little more wiggle room to make decisions on financing public space cleanliness operations and increasing the road maintenance operating budget, which were deferred at the Dec. 6 special finance and audit meeting.
Coun. Ian Thorpe said he thought the city had skimped in recent years on road maintenance, but deferred to Bill Sims, city general manager of engineering and public works, for an opinion on whether the city was behind on road maintenance.
“I think, for the most part, our roads are in very good shape,” Sims said. “The risk, of course, is that over time as inflation sort of nicks away at our investment, we do less each year, so we’ll see a decline in pavement quality, but we recognize also that pavement isn’t the only asset that we have to deal with, so it’s this balance that we’re trying to strike.”
Laura Mercer, general manager of corporate services, suggested splitting up budget increases for road maintenance over several years as a way to keep pace with maintenance requirements and inflation.
“That way we’re increasing the budget while trying to keep up with the cost of how things are changing,” she said.
Thorpe liked the idea and asked if a motion could be made supporting it.
Dale Lindsay, chief administration officer, suggested the committee could simply opt no change to the budget now and the option could be brought back in the fall for 2026 budget deliberations. The committee followed the recommendation and will review the road maintenance budget in the fall.
The committee also voted to follow the staff recommendation to increase resources for public space maintenance by adding $30,000 in 2025 and $75,000 in 2026 for contracted services for encampment cleanups and other cleaning related to social disorder. The decision also adds one full-time superintendent in the sanitation and recycling department, effective Sept. 1, to manage the service.
The decision brings the 2025 property tax increase to 7.8 per cent, but delays the hiring of two full-time community clean team employees and procuring additional equipment until 2026.
Sims explained the need for a full-time supervisor.
“We feel at this point there is a little bit of capacity within the clean team to support the CSOs as needed,” Sims said. “Where we’re struggling with capacity is in the supervision. We have a supervisor now that’s looking over close to 20 staff and that’s spread far, far too thin and that’s really impacting our ability to provide the service.”
The financial plan amendment and property tax bylaws will be brought before council for first three readings May 5 and for final adoption May 12.
