City of Cornwall adopts its 2024 Budget

City of Cornwall Council approved its 2024 budget on Wednesday, January 31, and with it, a 4.15 % increase to the tax base.

The average Cornwall residential property assessed at $176,700 will see an increase of $119.06 annually.

“The final increase for this year was above our targeted goal, and we ended up at 4.15%” , said Cornwall Mayor Justin Towndale. “Now while this number is higher than many of us would have liked, we do have a lot of external pressures which are contributing to our financial situation.”

“We do our best to make sure that our increases are as reasonable as possible. We did a comparison to 40 other Ontario municipalities. The average increase for 2024 amongst these municipalities is higher than our increase. Our budget contains a lot of good things that will help us move forward. We’re making progress in a lot of areas”.

The adopted budget consists of $231.6 million to support our city’s operations and maintain resident expected service levels and $32.7 million to be spent on physical infrastructure and buildings, for a total of $264.3 million investments in 2024.

Some key projects and initiatives included in the 2024 capital budget include:

• Tennis Court Resurfacing ($200,000)
• East Ridge Park ($300,000)
• Cornwall Fire Service Aerial Ladder Truck ($2,500,000)
• Marleau Avenue Reconstruction and widening – Phase 2 ($2,000,000)
• Bus stop improvements ($321,080)
• Green Bin Program- Provincially mandated ($1,200,000)
• Cornwall Civic Complex modernization ($3,500,000)

The spending priorities in the 2024 budget will assist the City of Cornwall in meeting the City’s recently approved Strategic Plan and the ensuing 2024 priorities and continuing to provide expected and high quality levels of service by the City for residents and businesses.

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