District of Muskoka Chair discusses council approving first ever multi-year budget

Jeff Lehman breaks down what the district’s first-ever multi-year budget means for housing, roads and municipal taxes in a Q-and-A with CTV News.

Jeff Lehman, chair of the District Municipality of Muskoka, broke down what the district’s multi-year budget means for housing, roads and municipal taxes in a Q-and-A with CTV News on Friday.

Question 1: How much money is the district working with for the budget?

Lehman: We deliver a lot of flow-through services. The levy is about $100 million. We deliver almost $300 million in total of services in Muskoka.

Question 2: Let’s start with the $53 million that’s going to be allotted for Fairvern Long-Term Care. What’s that going to look like?

Lehman: This is a huge project. A 160-bed home in Huntsville. And it’s a really leading-edge model. Instead of being an institution or design, it’s a social design. It’s designed to be a dignified place for people to live and receive care. And, that amount of beds, 160 beds, that’s going to make a big, big difference, in Muskoka for our seniors.

Question 2a: What’s the time frame on that?

Lehman: Move-in in the summer of 2026. So, yeah, it’s well under construction, and this really is the money to finish it, fit it out, get it ready for people to live in.

Question 3: $20 million for housing initiatives. Walk us through that.

Lehman: Probably the biggest issue in Muskoka, maybe across the country for municipalities… the housing crisis, affordability… a huge issue. And so this will be for constructing new affordable housing. We have one building underway already in Bracebridge. But there are projects throughout the district, and we do this sometimes a few at a time. A few here, a few there. It adds up to making a big difference and providing, safe and affordable housing for people in communities large and small.

Question 4: Can we talk about the Silver Bridge, the future of the bridge and the roads in the region?

Lehman: Well, when 100 years old, you reach, as Yoda said, look as good, you will not [laughs]. We’ve had some challenges with that bridge and I think it’s an iconic piece of infrastructure. Our focus 100 per cent is on repairing this bridge and getting it back into service as soon as possible.

We did get some bad news about a week ago that said we’re going to have to leave it closed until we can do some work on the structure underneath. 100-year-old steel, you know, it’s inspected all the time. This one was looked at in November, and something happened in December. Might have been the snowstorm. Might have been a heavy load. But either way, we need to keep people safe. That’s first and foremost, and then get the bridge repaired and back into service.

Question 4a: Any big roadway construction to be expected?

Lehman: We own a district road network, some of it’s old highways, some of it’s roads that go off into the bush into various places. Covers a huge area and keeping those roads up, it’s not a small job.

So there’s a little bit more money this year. We know it’s at the top of people’s list… keeping the roads in good condition… but especially when you’ve got the kind of volumes we see in the summer, and often the only way in and out of communities in the more remote parts of Muskoka.

Question 5: We’ll finish with the increase. Taxpayers are looking at a 4.52 per cent increase this year, then 3.6 moving into 2026. What does that mean and why is it important to be looking that far into the future?

Multi-year budgets allow you to plan better. They also save money for the taxpayer because we can go ahead with capital projects at the time that we’re likely to get the cheapest, prices through tender. And it also gives a little bit more predictability. You can spread the load across two years when you’ve got a big expense.

Those numbers are higher than in previous years. However, we’re a regional municipality, and that tax increase is actually the lowest of any regional municipality in Ontario. That wasn’t easy to do. We had to make some tough choices, but we still wanted to invest. And we all know what the impact of inflation was like on our own household budgets. Hits the district, too.

But what we want to do is try and keep those increases down and try and help keep life affordable for people. And in total, it’s about $15 for every $100,000 of value for your home. So we’ve tried to limit it while still really investing in the things that people told us were important.