Victoria’s city council continued budget talks Monday morning as they looked for ways to avoid a steep property tax hike next year.
In this third special council meeting, focused on the 2026-30 Draft Financial Plan, the merits of several services and projects that could be potentially cut from the budget.
The City’s initial Draft Financial Plan would result in a property tax increase of 13.3%; however, council wants to reduce this to 4%, before the increased VicPD budget impacts property tax rates.
As the draft budget stands, $38.5 million in spending would have to be cut from the current fiscal plan across the next five years, though $8.38 million will have to be cut from the 2026 budget.
During the meeting on Friday, November 21st, they discussed Appendix B: New Options for Reductions, and continued these talks on Monday, November 24th.
Appendix B includes a number of projects and services that are meant to be fully cut from the budget, in order to get down to their goal of a 4% property tax increase.
For every item line of Appendix B that council adds back into the budget, that 4% figure will be marginally increased.
Past budget meeting impacts
So far, item lines such as the Crystal Pool Replacement Project, the Bike Valet, 20% of City grants, Canada Day funding, and arts programming at venues like the Cameron Bandshell, Ship Point and Centennial Square have been added back in.
These projects alone have impacted the final version of the 2026-30 Financial Plan by just over $3 million.
Meanwhile, council has decided to reduce the budgets for some initiatives and services, such as OUR DWTN (now $750,000, down from $945,200) and the Major Community Initiatives and Events grant program (now $100,000, down from $200,350).
In the first budget meeting, council opted to keep the Growing in the City grants, the Pro Art Alliance, the Youth Bus Pass Program, the Butler Book Prize and Children’s Book Prize, the Poet Laureate and Youth Poet Laureate program and the South Island Prosperity partnership.
Additionally, the My Great Neighbourhood grants were kept, but reduced to $100,000, down from $152,000.
The latest budget meeting
During Monday’s meeting, council continued to work their way through Appendix B, reducing some services and cutting others completely.
The first item council looked at was the Special Events fund of $329,710, which allows support for over 300 special events that take place in Victoria, such as the TC10K and many various cultural events. Council ultimately decided to retain the full amount in the budget.
With that, council determined that they were satisfied with the changes made to the budget and the amount of money added back into the budget, which had been identified for removal.
Next, council took a look at the City’s capital budgets, which includes projects and commitments for which Victoria would have to take on debt.
The first project council looked at was the Government Street Refresh, which would cost $4.7 million in debt. This project was decidedly deferred to 2027, and not cancelled completely.
Council also decided to defer the multi-modal corridors project to 2027 in an earlier budget meeting.
Following the decision to defer the Government Street Refresh, council looked at the four remaining items from Appendix B which had not been addressed yet.
These four items included:
- Cost recovery for development regulatory schemes – $914,490
- Fees for emergency training and workshops – $37,000
- Boulevard Tax increase – $52,000
- VCC increased revenue potential – $100,000
Regarding the fees for emergency training and workshops, Fire Chief Daniel Atkinson told council that if these workshops’ costs were to be increased, attendance would no doubt be decreased which would result in less revenue.
Council voted to return this $37,000 back to the budget, but decided to leave the other items off the 2026 fiscal plan.
This concluded the Appendix B talks, and allowed council to consider other budgetary motions arising.
First, Councillor Matt Dell put forth a motion to reduce the City’s infrastructure funding from $5.5 million to $4 million. This funding reduction could impact roadwork, the City’s fleet, parks’ infrastructure, playgrounds and more.
However, Dell’s motion included that if any Non-Market Change (NMC) tax revenue comes in, in excess of $1 million, that it be added back into the infrastructure budget.
NMC is newly generated tax revenue that comes from construction or development and goes towards reducing property taxes for homeowners, but this figure will not be finalized until March.
Dell’s motion was approved in a 7–2 vote.
Councillor Marg Gradiner put forth a motion that may change several aspects of the way councillors travel and are paid for work that is in addition to their regular work.
This matter was deferred to the regular committee of the whole meeting on December 11th.
Going forward
The next few meetings regarding the 2026-30 Draft Financial Plan will take place on December 1st and December 9th.
In these meetings, council will continue to work their way through the 10 appendices that relate to the fiscal plan, and determine what can be cut versus what should remain in the budget.
The Draft Financial Plan must be solidified and adopted by May 15th at the very latest in order to have the property tax increase determined.
So far, city council has reduced the property tax increase to 5.42% for their portion through the cuts they have made.
However, VicPD’s increase accounts for another 5.02%, which would bring the tax increase for Victoria homeowners up to 10.44%
