3 hours ago
Swift News
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim's final chance at delivering the type of low tax increases he promised in his election campaign will come to a head next week.
"The mayor feels it's important that we zero in on the zero per cent option," said Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung, explaining the rationale for a motion by Sim heading to council next week that asks staff to present a 2026 budget with no increase to the local portion of the property tax bill.
"We know that our economic challenges are going to be here for some time. And we want to make sure that … the City of Vancouver is well positioned to deliver on those services that only we provide."
In his 2022 winning campaign, Sim criticized the nearly 25 per cent increases in cumulative property taxes under then-mayor Kennedy Stewart, and said his experience as a businessman would help keep future tax increases at or below inflation.
Kirby-Yung said she was confident that if council endorsed Sim's motion, staff would be able to freeze Vancouver's $2.3 billion budget, balancing mandatory staff wage increases and other inflationary pressures without cutting into core services.
"We've been very clear that services like library hours, centre workers, gardeners, boots on the ground, folks in engineering are the priority," she said.
"We have a new city manager on board. We'll look to them to see what they make in terms of recommendations to operationalize this. But I do believe that there's a lot of opportunity."