- 2024 Budget: 9.5% property tax increase.
- 2025 Budget: 6.9% property tax increase (5.4% plus a 1.5% City Building Fund levy).
- Based on these two increases, the compounded property tax increase is 17.1%.
- To exceed 20% compounded increase over her shortened term, Chow need only increase property taxes by 2.52% in year three.
What's not true here?
1) That the tax increase is clearly not her 'signature' initiative.
2) That because City taxes are non-indexed, unless an increase is voted, its unreasonable to count the entire increase that way. A real increase, similar to bumping the rate of income tax or sales tax is a fairer way to consider things.
So if you remove inflation That means you deduct ~5% as City budgets lag inflation 1 year.
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In respect of the Mayor's initiatives thus far.
1) 7-day per week Library service at every branch is in effect now. Every branch open every day.
2) Outdoor pools were open 2 hours per day longer this year than last.
3) TTC Service has increased by more than 10%; and if you want to see what that looks like, in 2023, the TTC ran 27 trains on Line 1 at mid-day, as of November 16th, 2025, that number is 40.
4) School Lunch program has been significantly expanded.
Lots of good stuff there.
Are there some things that could be done better? For sure! Is there a need for both more and more intelligent investment, no disagreement from me.
But the Mayor has only been in power for 2 budget cycles.
In that time, you've got lots more transit service, longer pool hours, lots more library service, more police and falling crime. Not a terrible level of achievement in the period in question.
