2026 Budget

Peterborough, ON - A survey on community priorities, services, and expectations for developing the Draft 2026 Budget was open from April 8 to 25, 2025. There were 143 responses submitted.

The annual budget survey is one way the City engages with residents alongside other consultation opportunities, including public meetings and interactions between the community and Council and City staff through in-person conversations, phone calls and emails. Input from the community engagement is considered with other budget inputs such as legislated requirements and financial pressures.

The budget survey is a consultation tool – a way for residents to provide input and opinions for Council’s consideration. To reduce barriers and to encourage participation in the survey, registration was not required to submit a response to the budget survey. It is not a scientific sample survey that is statistically defensible. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the population. The survey should be considered as a feedback tool that may inform the conversations around budget priorities.

Survey participants were asked how much they value various municipal service groups using a scale of very important, important, moderately important, slightly important and not important. Results showed that across all categories respondents find municipal services to be important, with the following categories receiving the highest number of Very important responses (previous year’s response in brackets).

1. Sewers, water, stormwater management (1)
2. Managing tax dollars (3)
3. Enabling affordable housing (2)
4. Fire prevention, police, paramedics (4)
5. Garbage and landfill (8)

When asked to rank a list of issues, the average rankings placed the options in the following order (previous year’s response in brackets):

1. Cost of living (4)
2. Housing/accommodations (1)
3. Social issues (3)
4. Physician recruitment (2)
5. Health/public health (5)
6. Economy/jobs/economic issues (7)
7. Infrastructure/transportation (6)
8. Crime/criminal activity (10)
9. Health and vitality of the downtown (8)
10. Environment/climate change/sustainability (9)
11. Arts, culture and heritage (13)
12. Governance and transparency (11)
13. Provision of recreation facilities (12)

Participants were asked to consider some of the broad tools that the City has available for balancing its budget, as required by law. They could select multiple options (previous year’s response in brackets).

• Increase user fees for City services that currently have fees – 50% (50.4%)
• Introduce new user fees for some City services that currently have no fees – 48.6% (48.6%)
• Reduce service levels – 33.1% (29.1%)
• Increase property taxes – 23.9% (34.1%)

Respondents indicated what they think the property tax change should be in 2026 based on their expectation for infrastructure and service levels. Based on the information available at the time, assumptions were made on what each option meant in terms of increasing, maintaining, or decreasing service levels to help inform the selection by participants.

• 1% to 3% increase - Will require reductions in core services and infrastructure investments, based on inflationary increases and costs driven by legislated requirements – 20.6% of responses chose this option
• Other (please specify) – 18.4%
• Greater than 6% increase - Increase investments in infrastructure/services – 14.9%
• No property tax increase - Substantial reduction in core services and infrastructure maintenance – 13.5%
• 3.1% to 4.6% increase - Will require reduction in non-essential services and infrastructure investments, based on inflationary increases and costs driven by legislated requirements – 12.8%
• 4.7% to 6% increase - Generally maintain existing levels of service, based on commitments, inflationary increases, and costs driven by legislated requirements – 12.1%
• Decrease property taxes - Drastically reduce core services and infrastructure maintenance – 7.8%

Outside of the specific questions in the survey, the survey included several opportunities for respondents to provide other comments on the budget. There were 191 open-ended responses submitted. The most frequently referenced themes in the comments included:

• Property tax levels and City spending – Comments about rising property taxes, reducing unnecessary spending, and prioritizing core services.
• Homelessness and affordable housing – Comments about the need for more affordable housing and supportive services; comments about compassion for people who are experiencing homelessness; expressions of frustration over tenting on public property.
• Policing and public safety – Divergent views are reflected among the comments with some participants calling for reducing the police budget and increasing investments in social programs, while others expressed a desire for stronger enforcement and more police resources.
• Public transit – Calls for increased frequency of buses on routes, increased transit service hours, and enhanced transit service across the City.
• Environmental sustainability – Generally, comments within this theme expressed support for environmental initiatives, including tree planting, active transportation, and climate action. Some respondents questioned spending on environmental activities as a way to divert funding to core services.
• Infrastructure maintenance – Comments on road conditions, sidewalks, and cleanliness in public spaces.
• City administration costs – Comments about compensation for City Council and City staff, calling for reducing spending on Council and staff.
• Downtown – Comments that reflect a desire to see improvements in the downtown area, with attention to cleanliness, safety and business activity.
• Community services – Comments about maintaining funding for parks, the arts, cultural programs and the library.
• Economic development – Comments about focusing on attracting businesses, supporting job creation, and expanding the commercial property tax base.

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