Audio City councillors approve 2024 budget — and hike transit fares

City councillors voted to approve the 2024 budget on December 11, 2023.

Before they did, they made three last-minute changes in order to further lower the proposed property tax increase. These changes included:

• Raising transit fares from $2.75 to $3.00 for a single ride. The cost of annual and monthly passes will also increase.
• Deferring a planned environmental assessment to facilitate reconstructing Sherbrooke Street W from Glenforest Boulevard to the city’s western limit
• Dipping further into the city’s Legacy Fund Income Reserve to cover some of next year’s expenses

Taken together with measures approved by councillors during their earlier budget deliberations, these changes to the budget brought the 2024 property tax increase for residential property owners down to 7 percent.

Peterborough Currents and Arthur Newspaper teamed up to cover the 2024 budget deliberations in a special podcast series. On the fifth and final episode, we discuss what impact this year’s budget — which relied heavily on one-time use of reserves to lower the tax increase — might have on next year’s budget. We also offer some final reflections on the budget as a whole.

You can listen to episode five of our 2024 budget podcast in the audio player above, or you can find it in your favourite podcast app. Thanks so much for listening to our budget podcast this year; it was a lot of fun to make!