Regional council considers 2025 budget

Niagara Region is in the thick of its 2025 budget process with presentations to council on transit and wastewater and water concluding last week. 

On Thursday, the budget committee will have a number of spending requests to fund agencies, boards, and commissions, such as Niagara Regional Housing, Court Services, and Niagara Regional Police. 

The police are requesting a 15 percent increase in 2025, adding up to a budget of nearly $217 million for policing. 

Last week, the budget committee approved in principle a 12.2 percent increase to the combined water and wastewater budget. The gross operating budget for water and wastewater, including the increase, is $178 million. 

As well a 5.88 percent increase to the Niagara Transit Commission is being requested, attached to a budget of that will bring the cost of transit to more than $60 million. 

During last Thursday’s water and wastewater discussion, a dire situation the Region is faced with, one spilled to councillors in a presentation by public works commissioner Terry Ricketts in September, was also a major part of the conversation. 

Council has been told of a capital backlog of nearly $700 million in underinvestment in water and wastewater infrastructure, and that it could take almost 50 years to address the crisis in its entirety, but chipping away at it through investing $65 million in capital projects in 2025 is what has been recommended by staff, on top of hiring 20 new full-time staff. 

Fort Erie Regional Coun. Tom Insinna asked “how we’re going to be able to handle that,” referring to the massive backlog of needed investment and what would happen if a facility, such as the one in Decew Falls, which is more than 100 years old, has a major breakdown. 

Ricketts said that’s a “difficult question” without having a scale of what the issue is. 

She said later in the meeting that hiring 20 new people to manage operations at aging sites is the “minimum to keep the lights on.” 

Also in the report before the budget committee was fixed requisition rates of water and wastewater to each municipality. These figures are based on “historical volume driven by growth,” said the budget presentation heard by regional councillors on Thursday. 

For wastewater, Niagara-on-the-Lake is projected to require a 19.77-per-cent increase of wastewater distributed by the Region to the local municipality. 

For water, it will be a 4.3-per-cent increase, according to a chart in last Thursday’s report. 

Pelham is expected to see a difference in wastewater requisition of more than 17 per cent compared to 2024, while Thorold’s is more than 12 per cent. 

The Regional share of water and wastewater bills is set to increase by $7.40 per month. 

The budget is currently expected to receive its final approval on Dec. 12. 

The capital budget, coming in at $376 million, was approved by councillors in September.