On the morning of June 10th, Peterborough City Council received preliminary information regarding the 2026 Budget from city staff at a special general committee meeting. 

Only nine hours after the previous evening’s city council meeting, staff from the Financial Services, Community Services, and Infrastructure Planning & Growth Management departments at the City, and Peterborough Police Service (PPS) Chief Stu Betts, presented the financial and municipal pressures influencing the direction of the 2026 Budget. 

Under strong mayor powers legislation, the mayor will initiate a collaborative budget process between the other members of council. Council must make recommendations for the mayor’s consideration before he provides budget direction for city staff to create the 2026 Draft Budget. 

The 2026 Draft Budget will seek to maintain the City’s current service levels and reflect inflation-based increases, projected costing adjustments, council approved changes, and the applicable legislated requirements.

In his opening remarks to council and staff, Mayor Jeff Leal justified his use of strong mayor powers to increase the Peterborough Police Services’ budget by 10% instead of the usual placeholder of 3% while insisting that the budget process is collaborative. 

“We know that there are provincially legislative changes to the Police Services Act that will affect the Police Services budget for 2026 and well beyond,” Leal said, referring to Ontario’s Community Safety and Policing Act, 2019. 

“Our starting point historically has always been unrealistic,” Leal continued. “Our budget needs to be hitting a more realistic number to reflect those changes.” 

City staff were made aware of Mayor Leal’s use of strong mayor powers in a directive letter signed May 30th.

“There's been nothing come forward since May 30th to council so that we would even be aware of a 10% increase based on a strong mayor's decision,” Town Ward Councillor Joy Lachica said during a question period. 

Mayor Leal then clarified that himself and Ashburnham Councillor Gary Baldwin—who both serve on the Police Services Board—received a preliminary walkthrough from the Board on the  requirements the City must meet.

“I’m just being realistic,” Leal said of his proposal. 

“I always will defend the men and women who put the uniform on each and every day to keep everybody in this community safe,” Leal told council. “I'll never, ever apologize for that.”

Chief Stu Betts later justified the requested budget increase to Council, listing legislative pressures facing PPS, increased staffing costs and their need for new training and updated equipment.

Betts reminded council that he had warned them of the higher costs associated with policing under the Community Safety and Policing Act (CSPA) last budget season. 

“Since I've arrived here, I have made it very clear that the Community Safety and Policing Act was on our doorstep,” Betts said. “We reduced our budget last year with the understanding there would be implications.”

During the 2025 Budget process, council reduced the 8.8% police budget increase by 1%, bringing the total operating budget to $37.8 million. The proposed increase for 2026 would see this line increase by $3.8 million, bringing the Police Services budget to $41.6 million.  

“Public safety is expensive, but justice is invaluable,” Betts told council. “And when you've invested in the Peterborough Police Service, you are getting a return on investment.” 

Betts also spoke on PPS’ reliance on grants to finance their core operations.

“We're not alone in that every municipal police service of small and mid size is dealing with the same things when we rely on these grants to provide the basic core services,” Betts said, calling the reduction of grant funding a “real budget risk.” 

“If that carpet gets pulled out from under our feet, somebody needs to absorb the cost.”

“If we want to investigate domestic violence, if we want to investigate elder abuse, if we want to investigate instances of sexual assault and child abuse, somebody has to pay to do those investigations,” Betts said. 

In addition to the proposed $3.8 million increase for police services, the City of Peterborough is anticipating a $11.4 million operating budget increase. 

This figure includes a $3.6 million to adjust for inflation, $2.3 million increase in staff compensation and a $1.6 million increase in funding for housing and homelessness initiatives. 

The 2026 preliminary net tax requirement currently sits at 7.44% to maintain current service levels and address fiscal pressures faced by the City. For a median-assessed property, this translates to a proposed tax increase of $385.32 to the taxpayer. 

“We're even hesitant here to put a bottom line of percentage on here because we know that's a moving target here, but we want to be realistic," Financial Services Commissioner Richard Freymond told council. 

Freymond also alluded to the results of the 2026 Budget Consultation Survey, which saw only 143 responses submitted.

“It's not a scientific sample circuit that is, from a defensibility perspective, statistically defensible,” Freymond said. 

While the community services operating budget is only a quarter of the City’s total budget, Community Services Commissioner Sheldon Laidman said that the social services budget is struggling to continue financing the city’s housing and homelessness initiatives due to a projected $370,000 reduction in provincial funding. 

“This budget continues to see dropping levels of senior government funding for mortgages in social housing,” Laidman told council. “That's by design. As those expire, we receive less funding.” 

One of the city’s 2026 objectives for social services is the implementation of funding from the Housing Accelerator Fund ($10.6 million over a three year period) and Peterborough’s Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hub ($6.2 million).

The projected social services expenditure is $125 million with an 8.5% projected increase. 

Housing and homelessness, the municipal portfolio which receives the least provincial funding, is projected to recieve a 14% budget increase, amounting to $1.63 million. The City used $1.2 million of their reserve this budget year to fund services that experienced shortfalls under the 2025 Budget. 

“Have you found the magic wand or elixir to fix house and homelessness, besides what we’re doing here?” Ashburnham Ward Councillor Keith Riel asked Laidman. 

“Every community in Ontario is struggling with this same issue,” Laidman replied. “We're left with holding this issue and addressing it from a financial and operational perspective.”

“Municipalities of the nature of Peterborough that have long-time services, that have been service areas for a wider region, those are the ones receiving a higher level of brunt on this issue,” Laidman concluded. “And I think that's what we're seeing in Peterborough, so it’s not just a province-wide thing.”

The challenges facing the City don’t stop there: Infrastructure, Planning and Growth Management Commissioner Blair Nelson forewarned of the issues with some of council’s budgeting tactics. 

“It’s like a basketball in the snake,” Nelson told council. 

“It's trying to look at that larger area of multiple years of budget financing so that you know when we can't afford something in this year and we're trying to reduce our capital requests and expenditures, we just don't push it to this year with an expectation that it's going to get delivered that next year,” Nelson said. 

2026 objectives for Nelson’s department include more property acquisition, reconstructing arterial roads, expanding the city's parking system with the introduction of an on-street permit system, and implementing traffic enforcement measures.

Nelson is also anticipating the end of Central Area Development Charge Exemptions, especially a concern after Prime Minister Mark Carney’s plans to reduce development charges by as much as 50%.

Otonabee Ward Councillor Kevin Duguay expressed an emphasis on communicating the exemption to developers.

“We need to be effective communicators,” Duguay said to Commissioner Nelson.

“We may have already told them in a previous report, but when it becomes relevant, when that property owner proceeds to develop with us, and then suddenly there's the exemption.”

Nelson also reported a reduction in parking revenue, especially at the King Street and Simcoe Street parking garages, and an overall loss in revenue with sustained increases in maintaining the garages.

Large capital projects include the continued Lansdowne St. West Reconstruction in two locations: general construction from Clonsilla Ave. to Kawartha Heights Boulevard, and a Park St. W intersection improvement for a total of a $11.1 million budget commitment for 2026.

Other projects of note include an increase in project costs from the Otonabee River Trail and Shoreline Improvement Project (an additional $940k commitment in 2026 for a project total of $7.5 million) and the initial cost commitment to the Charlotte Street Reconstruction, with its total project estimated to cost $31.5 million. 
Key dates for the City of Peterborough’s 2026 Budget process are as follows:

On June 19, 2025, there will be a community budget consultation meeting featuring brief presentations and conversations with City staff and councillors from 6:30 P.M. to 7:30 P.M. at Healthy Planet Arena Banquet Hall.

On June 30, 2025, there will be a City Council meeting at Peterborough City Hall on 500 George St. N. This meeting will see City Council considering the ratification of the General Committee direction on drafting of the 2026 Budget.

On November 3, 2025, the Draft 2026 Budget will be presented to City Council. 

On November 6, 2025, there will be another Budget consultation meeting with brief presentation and conversations with City staff. On November 10, 2025, there will be an informal community drop-in meeting for the public to ask questions and share ideas with City staff and councillors. 

On November 10, 2025, there will be a City Council meeting with public delegations on the Draft Budget.

From November 17-18, 2025, City Council will review the 2026 Draft Budget in a series of day-long General Committee meetings.

The Mayor will present the final 2026 Budget for adoption on December 8, 2025.