2025 Budget “Addressing the Present; Building for the Future”

The City of Oshawa’s 2025 Budget has been adopted. The budget reflects the City’s Strategic Plan and Financial Strategy, and focuses on strategic decision-making, service levels and long-term financial sustainability strategies like cost mitigation, building reserves and investing in infrastructure.

The property tax bill issued by the City of Oshawa collects property taxes for not only itself, but also the Regional Municipality of Durham and the Province for local school boards. The Oshawa portion of the total tax bill requires an increase of approximately $168.86 for the year on an average assessed property value as determined by M.P.A.C., or about $14.07 per month.

This increase will fund strategic investments in current and new infrastructure like roads, parks, watercourses and bridges, downtown revitalization and more while addressing growth and increasing demands on City services.

The adopted 2025 City Budget is on the Budget Documents webpage.

In case you were wondering…

Delayed property value assessments are impacting the City’s bottom line.

Municipalities collect taxes based on rules outlined by the Province of Ontario. Right now, Ontario's municipalities calculate property taxes based on the most recent property assessment as determined by M.P.A.C., using the valuation date of January 1, 2016.

Reassessments are normally completed every four years, but in early 2020 the Province of Ontario paused the reassessment process due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023, the Province announced they would be conducting a review of the property assessment and taxation system that would focus on fairness, affordability and business competitiveness and modernized administration tools, and that property reassessments would remain delayed until the review was complete.

With the review still ongoing, the value of any new properties added to the City’s assessment base, either from new buildings or changes to existing ones, must be adjusted to what they would have been worth on January 1, 2016.

As a result, Oshawa is unable to realize the full value of new construction. For example, in Oshawa, for every dollar of assessment increase in 2022, only $0.43 is added to the assessment base.

The return of the reassessment cycle:

• may result in lower tax rates;
• stabilizes and makes taxes more predictable;
• accurately distributes taxation amongst property owners; and,
• supports strong communities.

Downloaded responsibilities added $3 million to the City’s 2025 Budget.

As a lower-tier municipality, the City of Oshawa works collaboratively with its upper-tier municipality, the Region of Durham, and the Province of Ontario to share the responsibility of providing programs and services to residents and property owners.

The City of Oshawa is responsible for providing local services, such as building permits and inspections, fire protection and prevention, licensing, parks and recreation, City road and sidewalk maintenance and more.

While services and programs addressing housing, homelessness, mental health, addiction and social services are the responsibilities of upper levels of government, local governments like Oshawa are facing these challenges daily. As a result, this City budget includes approximately $3 million to address the impact of these social issues, including a unique fire response unit to address to medical calls, additional security, municipal law enforcement, maintenance costs for the downtown and, proactive parks patrol and cleaning of trails and parks across the city, and more.

Learn more on our Budget webpages.

For City of Oshawa updates, visit Oshawa.ca/NewsCentre to follow us on social media, subscribe to news and alerts, and have your say on Connect Oshawa.

Quotes

“Without a doubt this was one of the hardest budget processes I’ve encountered in the last 10 years. Oshawa, like other municipalities, is feeling the impact of downloading from other levels of government while facing historic economic challenges such as aging infrastructure, record high inflation, supply chain disruptions and more,” said Mayor Dan Carter. “I am committed to the principals of financial stewardship and building the strongest foundation possible for our future generations, and I believe that we were able to do just that.”