Last week, I posted about where Langley City stands today with property tax and debt compared to other municipalities in Metro Vancouver as Council was preparing to discuss the 2025 budget. Council gave first and second reading of the preliminary budget last Monday.
Today, I will review the ongoing operating budget, and later this week, I will review the capital projects. I wrote a post called "Infographic: understanding how revenue the City of Langley receives is used," which provides a good overview of our various funding sources and how we use them.
Maintaining our status quo funding levels requires a 4.3% property tax increase in 2025.
Status quo doesn't mean maintaining the same level of service. As our population grows, we need to increase our level of service.
For example, let's say we have 10 spaces for a recreation program. Maintaining our status quo funding means maintaining those same 10 spaces. The demand for those 10 spaces increases as the population increases, and the level of service decreases as a result. So if our population grows from 20,000 to 30,000, we need to provide 15 spaces to maintain the same level of service.
Back to the 4.3%, the biggest driver of this increase is wages and benefits, which are negotiated through collective agreements. The federal government negotiates the RCMP collective agreements. Municipalities negotiate other collective agreements, though collective agreements across local governments in our region have some consistency.
About 40% of the $2.7 million in status quo operating cost increases is due to our RCMP contract, detachment, and community policing office. About another 30% is other employee wage and benefit costs.
Other drivers for the 4.3% increase include fire rescue service equipment, our library contract with the Fraser Valley Regional Library system, and increases in software license costs.
This $2.7 million was offset by increased projected taxes due to population growth, reduced debt services costs, and increased fees. The net status quo overall increase works out to $1.8 million.
Council also preliminary approved other increases in the 2025 budget. This includes:
- An increase to our infrastructure levy to pay for roads, water, and sewer projects. This increase works out to $418,000 or 1%
- Two additional firefighters to keep up with population growth and prepare for SkyTrain. The cost is an additional $350,000 or 0.8% increase in property tax
- A new IT worker to help ensure we are safe from cyber security attacks. This cost is an additional $99,500 or 0.2%
- A new recreation worker to support our events. This cost is an additional $89,000 or 0.2%
- Keeping our pool open an extra month (in September.) This cost is an additional $68,240 or 0.2%
All in, the proposed 2025 property tax increase is 6.7%.
If you'd like to learn more about the 2025 budget, please consider attending Langley City's budget open house from 6 pm until 8 pm on Thursday, February 6th, at City Hall. You can find out more about the budget and the open house on Langley City's website.
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