City of St. John’s Releases Budget 2024

Today, the City of St. John’s released the details of Budget 2024. The Budget for the City of St. John’s is balanced at $343,947,041, an increase of 3.2% over 2023.

“The City is not immune to the inflationary pressures being felt by our residents and individuals across the country,” said Councillor Ron Ellsworth, Council lead for Finance. “These financial pressures, combined with our commitment to maintain and enhance City services that are important to our residents and businesses, has led to the decision by Council to increase property taxes in 2024.”

The residential mil rate will increase by 0.8, bringing the new rate to 9.1 and the commercial mil rate will increase by 2.6 bringing the new rate to 29.5. Residential water tax will marginally increase by $5 and commercial water usage rates will rise by 0.75 per cent. All revenue from the water tax directly funds the provision of the service.

Highlights include:

• Increasing the total budget for snow clearing in 2024 by 25.4% to $25.5 million.

• Investing $1.16 million into waste collection vehicles.

• Increasing the allocated budget for capital works projects by $3.1 million, for a total anticipated capital spend of $25.4 million to improve the City’s infrastructure.

• Creating new recreational programming and facilities, specifically through the opening of the new H.G.R. Mews Community Centre in the spring of 2024, and the construction and upgrading of sports facilities for the upcoming 2025 Canada Summer Games.

• Growing the transportation network through the expansion of shared use paths projects and continued investment in Metrobus and GoBus transit.

• The City will continue to redirect 10 per cent of the development fees collected to a reserve for community-led affordable housing projects.