2024 Hamilton budget ‘no easy task,’ says budget chair

It was certainly a struggle to get this year’s Hamilton City budget approved but budget chair John-Paul Danko says the effort was worth it.

Hamilton’s 2024 budget, Danko said, “maximizes investment” in core infrastructure while providing “critical supports” for people in the community who need them. “This is no easy task given the challenges municipalities face and the impact of downloading from other levels of government, but Council worked diligently to decrease tax increases, striking a balance between investing in key areas and reducing the tax burden.”

The budget, he added, demonstrates the City’s commitment to sustainable economic and ecological development, safe and thriving neighbourhoods, and responsiveness and transparency.

Hamilton councillor and budget chair John-Paul Danko

Some of the projects included in the budget include:

• Responding to the housing and homelessness crises with increased funding to support the construction of new affordable housing and shelter spaces and to develop a Winter Response Strategy and Food Strategy to support local food banks.
• Providing additional funding to protect tenants and sustain Housing Providers.
• Maintaining City assets and services while making improvements to programs like litter management.
• Enhancing levels of funding for public safety services, ensuring that fire, EMS, and police departments have the resources necessary.
• Investments in the transportation network, including roads, bridges, sidewalks, multi-use paths, and traffic management.
• Increasing and improving transit service frequency by adding an additional 49,000 hours of service.
• Preparing for climate change by investing in the City’s new Climate Change Reserve and other initiatives such as greening the municipal fleet, developing an urban forestry strategy and planting trees.
• Investments in parks, recreation and cultural assets.
• Improving customer service and digital technology and modernizing systems to better serve a diverse community.

Overall, the 2024 Budget represents an average property tax increase of 5.79 per cent, with 1.64 per cent (about $84 per household) of the increase related to the cost of local services; 1.6 per cent ($77 per household) for new investments in housing and homelessness; and 2.55 per cent of the tax hike to account for the impacts of new provincial legislation that shifts infrastructure costs for new development from developers to municipal taxpayers.

For detailed information about the budget investments, visit www.hamilton.ca/2024-tax-rate-budget.