Taxes, water and sewer rates set to go up in Georgina

YorkRegion.com
Feb. 7m 2017
Heidi Riedner

Georgina taxpayers can expect a 3.4 per cent increase over last year on their property tax bill after council officially adopts the town’s 2017 budget Feb. 8.

That works out to an extra $125 for an average home assessed at $327,140.

Not much was whittled out of a draft 4.9 per cent increase to the town’s portion of a total $86 million budget after weeks of budget deliberations, with $38,720,350 required from the tax levy to support the town’s operating and capital budgets.

The final blended 3.4 per cent increase combines the town’s, region’s and school board's portions of the total tax bill.

2017 will also include a 10.1 per cent increase over last year in water rates, as well as a 6 per cent increase in sewer rates.

“We were sitting at a 3.5 per cent increase in the base operating budget without doing any new initiatives (or) new capital,” Mayor Margaret Quirk said, referring to the final draft budget presented to council in December.

“So, we may not have cut very much, but we didn’t have a lot of (room) unless we cut services,” she added.