Council Preview / 2026 Capital Budget
By John Swartz
Orillia council meets at 12:45 p.m. Monday September 22. The reason for starting early is to have a special meeting of council regarding tax appeals and to hold a public meeting about the 2026 budget.
Before continuing with Monday’s agenda, take note on Thursday, September 25 there is a presentation to Cathy O’Connor and Barbara Jones as inductees to the Order of Orillia at 5:30 p.m. in council chambers followed by a reception in the Tudhope-McIntyre Boardroom.
Cathy O’Connor 
Barbara Jones
The tax report is recommending writing off $56K of property tax assessed and $22K of school board taxes and $2K for the Downtown Orillia Management Board.
Three properties only identified by tax roll numbers (these used also be identified by addresses) became exempt from property taxation and the write offs go back 2023.
The remaining properties on the list, 9 in total, have taxes written off because of damage or demolition by fire.
The budget meeting is to receive correspondence about ‘community engagement’ relating to the 2026 budget. There is no correspondence listed.
When council moves to the regular meeting, which technically can’t start until 2 p.m., but the last time they had a special meeting conducted before the regular meeting they switched gears about 5 minutes early. After opening formalities, they will move directly to the public forum, which most certainly will run its 30 minute time allotment because it appears a number of people want to express their opinion regard the return of the Samuel de Champlain monument.
A story was published over the weekend detailing what is in the department report about the return of the monument.
The closed session follows with two items on that agenda. One item is from the commemorative Awards committee regarding the Hall of Fame. The other is about a ‘sale offer – ministry of transportation.’ That one seems to be missing a word which would give some sense of what is maybe going to happen and the word missing is either to or from.
Another detail missing is the location of the land in question. There are a number of roads in and adjacent to the City this could be about. Are we contemplating an offer to sell Highway 11 to the City? Or, are we thinking of selling Lightfoot Drive? Who knows?
It seems this is the kind of detail staff and council should not be hiding. Yes, legislation requires real estate transaction be discussed behind doors, and there are some very good reason for that. Correspondingly there are details that are not allowed to be revealed. However the legislation does not prohibit all details and it seems to SUNonline/Orillia staff and council should be more discerning about what is published regarding closed session items so the public is not blindsided be their decisions.
For example, knowing a property, which property, in the Horne Business Park is in play and broadly its intended use is important to all of us. When the normally accompanying by-laws hit the agenda another piece missing of late is dollar amounts involved. How do we know a fair price was paid or received? And, of late, we don’t even get details of who, or what, the other party is when a sale happens. I think it would be appropriate, for example, to know at some point during discussions a tanning factory will be locating in the West Ridge on top of the fringe of the Oro Moraine, rather than after the fact.
Back In Public
Of special note, the 2026 capital budget proposal is public now and highlights are below. You can find the budget in the agenda package here, but it is not posted on the City’s budget page yet.
Council has ten reports to be discussed and decided upon. The Orillia Public Library board has an unsigned report asking council to approve a $25K increase in their budget for IT/website services. A $15K budget was approved in 2025 to redesign the website. However, the service provider, which is the same as for the City’s website, is planning to change the IT platform by June 2026.
That unnamed provider has offered discounts to their previous quote in order to get customers to make the change this fall rather than waiting until June. The alternative motion to push the expense off to the 2026 budget is $10K higher, so there is a substantial savings to change now.
Platform is one of those nebulous terms that often gets misused, even by IT people. Essentially a platform is the underlying software (i.e. security, data management, etc.) that makes all the different kinds of software components we think of as a website work, and in many cases the hardware the software operates on.
For example, SUNonline/Orillia is built on WordPress, which is the platform for the website. But, WordPress runs on a basket of other software and hardware the ISP provides – and that is the part in question here.
The board budgets $49K annually as a contribution to the City’s IT reserve fund (which is the source suggested for the budget increase).
Two Sides Of ‘Take A Seat’
Following from a report by councillors Janet-Lynne Durnford, Jay Fallis and Jeff Czetwerzuk in July a follow up report regarding the City making life difficult for agencies helping the homeless and removing benches in the downtown is on the agenda.
The Salvation Army has been providing outreach services in parking lot 1 (Colborne Street opposite Tim Horton’s) and got permits to do so. In 2023 The Lighthouse and the Biminaawzogin Regional Aboriginal Women’s Circle joined, but did not get permits, which includes provision for parking and using parking spaces. In June the City ticketed the newcomers for not paying for parking, at about the same time two benches in the area were removed.
Typical of institutional response to complaints about homeless people, instead of finding ways to fix the cause, steps to deal with symptoms are implemented; in this case the benches were viewed to be the problem. The response by the City was driven by complaints by others relating to loitering , litter, and the service agencies not paying for parking.
It turns out, if the two agencies late to the party get permits they can continue what they do, as long as they also clean up after those they serve – and do something about those who smoke. The latter two points may be a herculean task since convincing those who society has turned their backs on to respect the collective property of the people spurning them might understandably be difficult. The question is, would you care in their place?
The report also recommends returning the benches.
Water In, Water Out
Two items on the agenda related to water treatment. They appear on the agenda in reverse order of the subheader.
Staff has a report on stormwater rates and fees. Until 2017 there was no stormwater rate. It was implemented when it became apparent stormwater needs to be treated before hitting the lakes in a similar manner to waste water. Plans have been developed to do some treatment in a rudimentary way at various points in the City, but eventually storm water will be directed to the same system for treating waste water.
The thing is, no one thought storm water needed treating until recent times and running the pipes to just dump stormwater into the lakes was OK. Staff has determined an estimated cost for all the various plans and have a placeholder amount in the 10-year capital plan ($47.7 million), but new projected costs have increased to $64.6 million. The current rates will not cover the increase.
Additionally the stormwater rate plan did not account for fees for things like dewatering construction sites into the stormwater system. So replacing the current by-law will include fees for things like that and an increase in rates for 2026.
The next agenda item is staff’s report on our drinking water system, specifically, a report recommending an update to the drinking water system financial plan.
The current plan in effect since 2021 runs to 2030. However the report says a financial plan time frame must correspond to the effective dates of the license to operate a system and its license renewal time. A new financial plan would run to 2034.
That’s one reason for an update now. There are others. This thing called inflation which has ballooned in the intervening years may have disrupted expense projections. This is combined with anticipated expansion of the distribution system because of growth.
Growth used to be funded by developers, but the province has forced reduction of what municipalities can charge, so existing taxpayers are going to be subsidizing developers.
The consultant, Watson and Associates Economists Ltd., indicates there will be a net deficit accumulated by 2034 of $17.7 million. If the system stayed the same and its use stayed the same we’d be in fine shape because maintenance and replacement as needed has been accounted for in the 10-yer capital plan.
There are two main ways to make things balance, increase water rates, which are anticipated to rise and average o 5% annually, and get developers to pay for expansion.
Get The Lead Out
Later in the agenda is a report regarding the rebate program to help property owners replace lead water pipes. The program rebates 50% of the cost to a maximum of $3K, staff recommend changing those figures to 100% and $5K.
It is not known exactly how much of the piping on private property is lead. When it is discovered, the City notifies property owners and encourages them to make replacements. So far, only 6 property owners have taken advantage of the program. The average cost is a little more than $5K, this includes the cost of new water meters and building permits. The changes would be applied retroactively to those 6 property owners.
2026 Capital Budget
The budget process is radically changing for the 2026 year because of strong mayor powers being granted to Orillia. The budget deliberations will be broken down to three parts, each starting at different time. The capital budget deliberations start September 29.
The agenda has an overview report for the capital budget. The grand total proposed for 2026 is $51.2 million, covering 105 projects. The 2025 amount is $43.9 million. Road work takes up 26.5% and water related projects 38%.
New roads to look forward to driving on include the second phase of Jarvis Street reconstruction and Wyandotte Street. Gill Street will have some sewer work, which means new road above, and there is $1.1 million in the budget for resurfacing of other streets. Unlike previous capital budgets, no list of streets scheduled for resurfacing is provided.
Funding for capital projects comes from several sources: Reserves – $39.4 million; debt – $8.5 million; development charges – $2.1 million and just under $1 million from your tax bill. In the past several projects had grant funding attached, but there is only one grant indicated for 2026.
Past practice has been to designate some capital project requests for council to decide. Most capital projects are ones staff has already designated as need to do and the difference between the proportion of costs of those projects coming from the capital tax levy and the mount of the previous year’s tax levy has been carved out for council to decide on additional projects to endorse.
The methodology may have changed, but there is still $400K set aside for council to approve. Those include resurfacing Colborne Street, a traffic circle at Forest and James Streets and a pedestrian crossing on Nottawasaga Street.
There are a few interesting projects included in the budget. They are:
- Buying land for a youth/seniors center $1.5 million
- Dog Park for Foundry Park $100K
- Skatepark/playground/pickleball – Foundry Park $1.167 million ($1 million grant finding)
It’s interesting to note that the 4th phase of Laclie Street reconstruction has been pushed out to 2029. Phase 3 was originally to have begun this year and 4 next year, but phase 3 will not start until 2027, and 4 was to start the following year. Shares in auto suspension shops in Orillia are expected to increase in value.
How It Went
A staff report on surveys taken with City staff, residents and outside agencies analyzed the things that worked and failures related to managing the response to the ice storm.
Generally, Upper level staff said emergency panning worked well at their level in coordinating the response, but lower level staff said the execution had flaws. The chief complaint from below was some staff were given too much work and others too little, and there was a general displeasure with being unprepared for tasks they had no training for and that some were working long hours for the City and unable to tend to their own problems on the home front.
Residents both praised the City’s response and criticized it. One thing is pretty clear, when the power is out for so long, it’s hard to receive information and some method needs to be devised to inform residents when they can’t just look at their computers and phones to get info.
Another issue was the lack of generators for City facilities like the recreation centre and water system pumps.
Communication with outside agencies other than the primary ones, (hospital, police) was not as great as it could have been.
The upside is the aftereffect of the storm revealed the City’s emergency plan, while taking into account many things, left some of the execution parts up in the air and staff say those will need to be addressed. One thing is certain, with the change in the types and frequencies of storms, they will get a chance to improve and show improvement.
Motions
There is only one enquiry motion and it is from councillors Fallis and Czetwerzuk to have staff prepare a report on the feasibility of implementing all-way stop sign control at the following intersections:
– Orion Boulevard and Stoneridge Boulevard
– South Street and Leonard Drive
– Isabella Drive and Stoneridge Boulevard
– Skyline Drive and Alexander Road
– Monarch Drive and Vanessa Drive
Council meetings are open to the public or can be watched on the City’s Youtube channel.
(Photos by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia; Images Supplied)
