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I think a lot of folks are focusing on new investments as being the reason Peterborough is running out of money, when if you really want to understand the problem you need to look at what has been built.
Around half of the city's land area was developed between the 60s to the 90s, and it was built in a way that the tax revenue doesn't cover the lifecycle costs. Now that most of the infrastructure that was built in that time is reaching end of life all at once, the City is faced with hard choices about where it will spend the money it does have.
The answer does not lie completely on the costs side of the equation, we need to start building developments that generate more tax revenue at the same or lower costs to service.
12 million for a business park that hasn’t attracted ANY tenants? Were there any prospective companies/tenants interested at all before they decided to invest 12 million taxpayer dollars into a fancy driveway in the middle of an empty field….. ? I don’t even know what to say. 🙄
Trent and the City have worked together for this project for many years. They have invested a lot of time, and millions of dollars.
Unfortunately they are better at extracting funding from the government (where has it all gone?) for planning and studies, and are not competent at running sustainable businesses.
[https://cleantechcommons.ca/our-team/](https://cleantechcommons.ca/our-team/)
Look who is in charge. Do you think there will be any accountability? Will the project find a new leader who can do a better job?
Pickleball is a symptom of the systemic problems in Peterborough.
If the Pickleball Association raised funds privately, bought land and built courts, I don't think anyone would complain, and the new proposed downtown location is great. It's just not something the local government should be doing right now.
Peterborough is facing a 10 per cent increase in the cost to run the city in 2025, but the two co-chairs of finance said, at a meeting on Thursday night, that they will not consider charging ratepayers 10 per cent more next year.
“Ten per cent is not an option,” said Coun. Andrew Beamer, the finance co-chair, at the end of a general committee meeting on Thursday that was all about finances.
Coun. Dave Haacke, the other co-chair of finance, said he won’t support a 10 per cent tax increase either.
For years, successive tax increases hovered around three per cent. In 2024, the increase jumped to seven per cent.
It had been a struggle for council to keep this year’s increase below 10 per cent, and Haacke said budgeting is not about to get easier.
“We keep saying it every year — but it’s going to be hard, this year,” he said. “And we may have to start cutting (services).”
City treasurer Richard Freymond said on Thursday that he was offering no spending recommendations yet. Instead, city staff was meant to outline costs that councillors “might reasonably expect to see, in a draft (2025) budget.”
For example, Freymond estimated it will cost about $1.1 million to add services in 2025, mostly to operate the new Miskin Law Community Complex (the twin-pad arena and library branch, still under construction in Morrow Park).
The twin-pad complex is due to open late this year. In 2025, it will operate for a full year.
There’s also a $3.1 million cost to cover in 2025, because the provincial government will not allow the city to adjust the commercial and industrial tax ratio as planned.
During 2024 budget talks, council voted to reset the ratio so that business and industrial property owners pay 1.65 times the taxes that homeowners do, up from 1.5 per cent.
The idea had been to shift $3.1 million in taxes from homeowners to business owners, to give homeowners a break. But on Thursday, Freymond explained that it can’t be done.
He told councillors that it turns out the provincial government needed to approve the plan, and the province said no — leaving the city with a $3.1-million shortfall.
Freymond showed charts with many more expenses faced in 2025: for example, $2.8 million more to cover salaries for municipal workers, $2.1 million more for worker benefits and $1 million more to run the Peterborough Police Service (if police ask for no more than a three per cent budget increase).
With all those costs tallied, Freymond expects the city will need an additional $21.9 million — or 10.28 per cent more — to run the city in 2025, compared to 2024.
On Thursday, councillors planned to resume talking about the 2025 budget in meetings scheduled for early August. At that time, they will debate how much of a tax increase they might be willing to charge; with this guideline in mind, city staff can then write the draft 2025 budget document.
The draft document will be released in the fall, and then budget talks take place in November (with a 2025 budget presented for adoption in December).
Haacke said at the meeting on Thursday that expenses “creep up”: $50,000 here for one program, $100,000 there for another. It all adds up to a lot of money, he said — and it’s unaffordable.
“We want to do the best that we can for citizens, but we can’t deliver everything for citizens,” Haacke said. “We can’t continue doing all things for all people.”
Mayor Jeff Leal told councillors on Thursday that he saw this coming.
“People thought it was hyperbole when I said we would hit the wall,” he said, referring to a comment he made at a meeting earlier this month. “There’s the wall. Right there.”
Meanwhile, cost recoveries aren’t happening fast enough for Leal. For example, it cost the city $12 million to install municipal water and sewer servicing at Cleantech Commons, a research park for green technology startups on the main Symons campus at Trent University. While the city was meant to recover its cost from rent, Cleantech Commons hasn’t been able to attract any tenants. Leal further pointed out to councillors that Trent University isn’t required to pay property taxes to the city.
“We need to have serious discussions with our partners … We can’t keep going (like this),” Leal said.
In an interview following the meeting, Leal said that Trent University has been exempt from property taxes since its inception, under provincial legislation enacted in 1964.
“I accept that,” he said. “But 2024 is a lot different from 1964.” These days, the city’s having trouble expanding its economic base, Leal said, “and I think it’s time we had a fulsome discussion with Trent University about the future. We need to get activity, in that area,” he said, adding that it’s “premature” to say what exactly that “activity” at Cleantech Commons might look like.
Nah, with enough pickleball, crime will decline to the point that the police are useless anyway. I say we just preemptively pave over the police station downtown and lay out 24 new pickleball courts.
Asking city staff to cut back city staff, especially the highly paid and poorly preforming managers?
Perhaps it's time to ask, how many of the senior leadership at the city of Peterborough, live in the City of Peterborough?
If you pay attention to the budget talks, the local government is happy to spend our tax dollars on anything and everything, and there are lots of "pet projects" like Pickleball or funding for special interests groups.
The government is doing a lot (of spending) it's just not very effective.
I think you're underestimating how depressing it is for families making +200k/year to to go to minor hockey games in Whitby, Kingston, or Newmarket and see first class arenas, only to watch their own kids play home games at the Healthy Planet arena. Ewwww!
It just makes sense to spend $60,000,000.00 to make these people feel better about paying 10k/yr for a 13-year-old to falsely think they can be Conner McDavid. Actually, it's the parents that think that.
Money well spent.
-Waste of money that like 10 people thought was necessary, literally next to an already functioning ice skating rink.
-The people who did the real work for this was the concrete pourers and painters who sacrificed their health for our shitty infrastructure, not the city council. All they did was talk about it but they'll be compensated more handsomely for their work I'm sure.
-Waste of money delayed multiple years, went over budget. Absolute gong show of a project that like 5 people thought was necessary. Probably lost or damaged a few historic canoes due to how poorly it was handled, an embarrassment of a project (the folks that did the construction and electrical did beautifully amid the circumstances, shoutout to Lancer Electric and Chandos et al)
-This ones actually kinda fire. 1 in 4 success rate from the council insofar. Again though it's awesome because of Cleantech, all city council did was agree to spend our money idk how much credit I wanna give them here.
-Became overrun within weeks and didn't have enough space for all the homeless people they keep kicking out of tents. Pandemonium ensued, nobody was happy. With the unflinching housing market, there's definitely no space for the rest of us there when things go tits up.
-Lets be honest for a second here-- do YOU feel like the substance abuse epidemic has been eased by the safe injection site? These people need more resources than a chill spot to get high.
-Waste of money that like 5 people wanted. Going in place of the Cavalry church and may uproot the community garden that's been established there for years now. The garden's members grow food for local soup kitchens every year.
That's not even getting into what they haven't done or the innumerable annoyances and shortcomings the folks of this county have been putting up with years, especially during/since the pandemic. People of all sorts, from small business owners to students in school were left broke, confused, socially isolated and thrown out of routine- and the individuals we elected to have our backs have absolutely face planted with their pants down in terms of "doing everything" for us as they'd put it.
***We don't want a shiny new museum or a skating rink 50m down from the older rink, we want to collectively get back on our feet and start winning again. Pickelball and fancy museums aren't worth shit when your neighbours are losing themselves in a dozen different flavors of despair***
Best believe I'm going to be smarter with my votes this year. Id bet I'm not alone in that either. Insanity is doing the same thing again expecting different results, we all know better now.
This article talks about the big investment into cleantech commons that isn't paying off. May have been a good idea, but poor execution.
Did the new building that is office/break room for the injection site workers really help?
After selling the city hydro assets, the City had millions of dollars, and could have invested in affordable housing but instead we got unproductive assets and ???
Incompetence and corruption has been tolerated for too long.
If the elected representatives are unable or unwilling to uncover the root the the systemic failures of our local government, maybe it's time for new ones with a mandate to seek out and remedy the rot in our local government. Our tax dollars are being wasted, and it's time to stop that, and start spending on essentials.
In their defence, there is a lot of road fixing happening.
The city publishes the budget here
https://www.peterborough.ca/en/doing-business/city-budget.aspx
The largest components are police (about 19%) capital finance expenses (about 19%), and fire about 10%.
Public Works are 5%, transit 7, environmental services 4, social services 6.5, paramedics 3, there's just a lot of little stuff.
Out of a roughly 380 million dollar budget (about half of which is from city taxes and the rest from other levels of government and user fees).
Police are coming back with their shopping cart full of demands next year after seeing how easy it was to get their 15 percent raise and giant palace. Guaranteed.
Please note that this article may require a subscription to view. If you do not have a subscription you can access The Peterborough Examiner (and related news sites) via [PressReader](https://www.ptbolibrary.ca/en/browse/pressreader.aspx) using a free Peterborough Public Library card. Alternatively you can check out local independent news sources like [Peterborough Currents](https://peterboroughcurrents.ca/), [KawarthaNow](https://kawarthanow.com/), and [Trent University's Arthur](https://www.trentarthur.ca/). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Peterborough) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think a lot of folks are focusing on new investments as being the reason Peterborough is running out of money, when if you really want to understand the problem you need to look at what has been built. Around half of the city's land area was developed between the 60s to the 90s, and it was built in a way that the tax revenue doesn't cover the lifecycle costs. Now that most of the infrastructure that was built in that time is reaching end of life all at once, the City is faced with hard choices about where it will spend the money it does have. The answer does not lie completely on the costs side of the equation, we need to start building developments that generate more tax revenue at the same or lower costs to service.
So true! Peterborough Currents wrote exactly about this issue a few weeks ago!
Preach!
12 million for a business park that hasn’t attracted ANY tenants? Were there any prospective companies/tenants interested at all before they decided to invest 12 million taxpayer dollars into a fancy driveway in the middle of an empty field….. ? I don’t even know what to say. 🙄
Noblegen. Now extinct.
🤦🏻♀️
Trent and the City have worked together for this project for many years. They have invested a lot of time, and millions of dollars. Unfortunately they are better at extracting funding from the government (where has it all gone?) for planning and studies, and are not competent at running sustainable businesses. [https://cleantechcommons.ca/our-team/](https://cleantechcommons.ca/our-team/) Look who is in charge. Do you think there will be any accountability? Will the project find a new leader who can do a better job?
Maybe saving 4 Mil on pickle ball courts nobody want’s except some people on council would be a good start
Absolutely. It's a start, but it's a drop in the bucket. There are bigger structural changes needed.
Pickleball is a symptom of the systemic problems in Peterborough. If the Pickleball Association raised funds privately, bought land and built courts, I don't think anyone would complain, and the new proposed downtown location is great. It's just not something the local government should be doing right now.
Can someone do the thing where they post what’s behind the paywall?
Pickle-wall
Thank you for that audible snort I just made.
https://archive.ph/bMEEE
Garbage rag posting nonsense
It's a dollar a month. [https://www.hub.metroland.com/subscribe/theexaminer/button/](https://www.hub.metroland.com/subscribe/theexaminer/button/)
Free with a library card
People in this town can't handle another huge tax increase!🤬
Seriously paying almost 6k as property taxes in the city. It's like daylight robbery. And the city hall clerk is a fucking bitch.
Peterborough is facing a 10 per cent increase in the cost to run the city in 2025, but the two co-chairs of finance said, at a meeting on Thursday night, that they will not consider charging ratepayers 10 per cent more next year. “Ten per cent is not an option,” said Coun. Andrew Beamer, the finance co-chair, at the end of a general committee meeting on Thursday that was all about finances. Coun. Dave Haacke, the other co-chair of finance, said he won’t support a 10 per cent tax increase either. For years, successive tax increases hovered around three per cent. In 2024, the increase jumped to seven per cent. It had been a struggle for council to keep this year’s increase below 10 per cent, and Haacke said budgeting is not about to get easier. “We keep saying it every year — but it’s going to be hard, this year,” he said. “And we may have to start cutting (services).” City treasurer Richard Freymond said on Thursday that he was offering no spending recommendations yet. Instead, city staff was meant to outline costs that councillors “might reasonably expect to see, in a draft (2025) budget.” For example, Freymond estimated it will cost about $1.1 million to add services in 2025, mostly to operate the new Miskin Law Community Complex (the twin-pad arena and library branch, still under construction in Morrow Park). The twin-pad complex is due to open late this year. In 2025, it will operate for a full year. There’s also a $3.1 million cost to cover in 2025, because the provincial government will not allow the city to adjust the commercial and industrial tax ratio as planned. During 2024 budget talks, council voted to reset the ratio so that business and industrial property owners pay 1.65 times the taxes that homeowners do, up from 1.5 per cent. The idea had been to shift $3.1 million in taxes from homeowners to business owners, to give homeowners a break. But on Thursday, Freymond explained that it can’t be done. He told councillors that it turns out the provincial government needed to approve the plan, and the province said no — leaving the city with a $3.1-million shortfall. Freymond showed charts with many more expenses faced in 2025: for example, $2.8 million more to cover salaries for municipal workers, $2.1 million more for worker benefits and $1 million more to run the Peterborough Police Service (if police ask for no more than a three per cent budget increase). With all those costs tallied, Freymond expects the city will need an additional $21.9 million — or 10.28 per cent more — to run the city in 2025, compared to 2024. On Thursday, councillors planned to resume talking about the 2025 budget in meetings scheduled for early August. At that time, they will debate how much of a tax increase they might be willing to charge; with this guideline in mind, city staff can then write the draft 2025 budget document. The draft document will be released in the fall, and then budget talks take place in November (with a 2025 budget presented for adoption in December). Haacke said at the meeting on Thursday that expenses “creep up”: $50,000 here for one program, $100,000 there for another. It all adds up to a lot of money, he said — and it’s unaffordable. “We want to do the best that we can for citizens, but we can’t deliver everything for citizens,” Haacke said. “We can’t continue doing all things for all people.” Mayor Jeff Leal told councillors on Thursday that he saw this coming. “People thought it was hyperbole when I said we would hit the wall,” he said, referring to a comment he made at a meeting earlier this month. “There’s the wall. Right there.” Meanwhile, cost recoveries aren’t happening fast enough for Leal. For example, it cost the city $12 million to install municipal water and sewer servicing at Cleantech Commons, a research park for green technology startups on the main Symons campus at Trent University. While the city was meant to recover its cost from rent, Cleantech Commons hasn’t been able to attract any tenants. Leal further pointed out to councillors that Trent University isn’t required to pay property taxes to the city. “We need to have serious discussions with our partners … We can’t keep going (like this),” Leal said. In an interview following the meeting, Leal said that Trent University has been exempt from property taxes since its inception, under provincial legislation enacted in 1964. “I accept that,” he said. “But 2024 is a lot different from 1964.” These days, the city’s having trouble expanding its economic base, Leal said, “and I think it’s time we had a fulsome discussion with Trent University about the future. We need to get activity, in that area,” he said, adding that it’s “premature” to say what exactly that “activity” at Cleantech Commons might look like.
We. Want. Pickleball. And more money for cops
Nah, with enough pickleball, crime will decline to the point that the police are useless anyway. I say we just preemptively pave over the police station downtown and lay out 24 new pickleball courts.
Finally someone is talking sense.
And we don't care what services for other people get cut to get what we want!
Cops with pickleball rackets, and when you break the law they fire a plastic ball at you.
Easy. Make widespread reductions in municipal government and public safety roles
Asking city staff to cut back city staff, especially the highly paid and poorly preforming managers? Perhaps it's time to ask, how many of the senior leadership at the city of Peterborough, live in the City of Peterborough?
Maybe we should do some of the things, because right now it feels like we are doing none of the things.
If you pay attention to the budget talks, the local government is happy to spend our tax dollars on anything and everything, and there are lots of "pet projects" like Pickleball or funding for special interests groups. The government is doing a lot (of spending) it's just not very effective.
It's government. Spending money poorly is par for the course.
I don't expect perfect, but there is poor financial management, and then there is outright corruption and incompetence.
Ah here we go, I see deep deep cuts coming for Transit. Enjoy your 120 Minute trip times everyone!
What "things" have they done? FIX THE ROADS
Holy fuck take a look around You can’t get around the city because every road is closed off being fixed.
Build hockey arena. Turn roads into bike lanes. Build canoe museum. Build cleantech commons. Homeless encampment. Safe injection site. New police station.
I think you're underestimating how depressing it is for families making +200k/year to to go to minor hockey games in Whitby, Kingston, or Newmarket and see first class arenas, only to watch their own kids play home games at the Healthy Planet arena. Ewwww! It just makes sense to spend $60,000,000.00 to make these people feel better about paying 10k/yr for a 13-year-old to falsely think they can be Conner McDavid. Actually, it's the parents that think that. Money well spent.
-Waste of money that like 10 people thought was necessary, literally next to an already functioning ice skating rink. -The people who did the real work for this was the concrete pourers and painters who sacrificed their health for our shitty infrastructure, not the city council. All they did was talk about it but they'll be compensated more handsomely for their work I'm sure. -Waste of money delayed multiple years, went over budget. Absolute gong show of a project that like 5 people thought was necessary. Probably lost or damaged a few historic canoes due to how poorly it was handled, an embarrassment of a project (the folks that did the construction and electrical did beautifully amid the circumstances, shoutout to Lancer Electric and Chandos et al) -This ones actually kinda fire. 1 in 4 success rate from the council insofar. Again though it's awesome because of Cleantech, all city council did was agree to spend our money idk how much credit I wanna give them here. -Became overrun within weeks and didn't have enough space for all the homeless people they keep kicking out of tents. Pandemonium ensued, nobody was happy. With the unflinching housing market, there's definitely no space for the rest of us there when things go tits up. -Lets be honest for a second here-- do YOU feel like the substance abuse epidemic has been eased by the safe injection site? These people need more resources than a chill spot to get high. -Waste of money that like 5 people wanted. Going in place of the Cavalry church and may uproot the community garden that's been established there for years now. The garden's members grow food for local soup kitchens every year. That's not even getting into what they haven't done or the innumerable annoyances and shortcomings the folks of this county have been putting up with years, especially during/since the pandemic. People of all sorts, from small business owners to students in school were left broke, confused, socially isolated and thrown out of routine- and the individuals we elected to have our backs have absolutely face planted with their pants down in terms of "doing everything" for us as they'd put it. ***We don't want a shiny new museum or a skating rink 50m down from the older rink, we want to collectively get back on our feet and start winning again. Pickelball and fancy museums aren't worth shit when your neighbours are losing themselves in a dozen different flavors of despair*** Best believe I'm going to be smarter with my votes this year. Id bet I'm not alone in that either. Insanity is doing the same thing again expecting different results, we all know better now.
This article talks about the big investment into cleantech commons that isn't paying off. May have been a good idea, but poor execution. Did the new building that is office/break room for the injection site workers really help? After selling the city hydro assets, the City had millions of dollars, and could have invested in affordable housing but instead we got unproductive assets and ??? Incompetence and corruption has been tolerated for too long. If the elected representatives are unable or unwilling to uncover the root the the systemic failures of our local government, maybe it's time for new ones with a mandate to seek out and remedy the rot in our local government. Our tax dollars are being wasted, and it's time to stop that, and start spending on essentials.
In their defence, there is a lot of road fixing happening. The city publishes the budget here https://www.peterborough.ca/en/doing-business/city-budget.aspx The largest components are police (about 19%) capital finance expenses (about 19%), and fire about 10%. Public Works are 5%, transit 7, environmental services 4, social services 6.5, paramedics 3, there's just a lot of little stuff. Out of a roughly 380 million dollar budget (about half of which is from city taxes and the rest from other levels of government and user fees).
Road fixed are happening but sadly the ones downtown will just be cosmetic.
Our Property taxes are way to high for what we get Insane . Not right 😕
You will own nothing and be happy
Police are coming back with their shopping cart full of demands next year after seeing how easy it was to get their 15 percent raise and giant palace. Guaranteed.