Money health · Ontario

Three cities held 2026 taxes down with one-time money. What happens in 2027?

Mississauga, Brampton and Windsor all used money they can only spend once to keep this year’s increase low. That can be a sensible bridge, or it can push a bigger bill into next year. Here is what their own budgets say.

Every council wants to keep taxes down, and every one faces costs that rise faster than inflation: wages, insurance, roads, transit. When the gap is too big for one year, a city can close it with money it has already saved, money it expects only once, or money it lends itself. None of that is unusual, and none of it is wrong by itself. The question is what happens the following year, when that money is gone.

Mississauga: $33 million from savings

For 2026, Mississauga used $33 million of reserves, so the city’s part of the tax bill rose 4.39% instead of 8.80%. Its own four-year plan then shows a 15.12% increase in 2027. In September, council was told 2026 could end with an operating deficit of $39.6 million before reserves are applied.

Brampton: a loan to itself

Brampton’s adopted 2026 budget holds the city’s share of the tax bill at 0%, with a 1% hospital levy on top. The budget tables show $19,476,000 taken from the Strategic Reserve, worth 1.3% on the levy, which the budget calls a “short-term internal loan”. It was added by the Budget Committee. We did not find a repayment date or schedule.

Windsor: dividends it calls one-time

Windsor approved a 0% levy for 2026. The budget counts $5,000,000 of extra dividends from city-owned companies, $1,500,000 from the airport and $3,500,000 from the tunnel company, which the City itself calls one-time. By June, the City projected $5,471,200 of pressures against the budget, with $5.2 million left in the reserve meant to absorb surprises.

One-time money is not a problem. A plan for the year after is what tells you whether it was a bridge or a cliff.

What a good answer would look like

A city using one-time money well can usually say three things: how much of next year’s budget is already committed, where that money will come from instead, and what the increase would have been without the one-time help. Mississauga has published part of it: what the increase would have been without the reserves (8.80%) and its 2027 forecast (15.12%). We did not find the same for the other two in the documents we read, which may simply mean it is in a report we have not seen.