JOSHUA ALLAN
The 1510 West

Property taxes are swinging upwards once again for Beaconsfield residents. After being hit with a 9.4-per-cent tax increase last year, the city’s $59.9-million budget will deliver another 3.7-per-cent hike.

This raises the total municipal tax on an average single-family home – valued at $1.03 million –

to $7,030, an increase of $242 compared with 2023.

The bill includes an annual garbage fee of $210, an increase of $25 compared with 2023; and a water tax of $40, which is unchanged from last year.

The residential tax rate has been set at $0.6061 per $100 of property valuation, up from last year’s rate of $0.5878.

Beaconsfield will increase its overall spending in 2024 by just over $2 million, according to the budget that was approved in December.

Some $30.6 million – just over half of Beaconsfield’s total budget – will go to toward the Montreal agglomeration budget as payment for shared services. These services include public transit, social housing and emergency services. This cost is up by nearly $960,000 compared with last year.

In a Dec. 12 presentation on the new budget, Beaconsfield city manager Patrice Boileau and finance and treasury director Robert Lacroix delved into the details of the changes in the new budget compared with last year.

The presentation compared the yearly change in cost of the local budget with that of the city’s agglomeration payments. All in all, the cost of Beaconsfield’s local budget was upped by 4.3 per cent, while the cost of the agglomeration portion of the budget rose by 3.2 per cent.

However, Boileau and Lacroix pointed out that this change is not indicative of the overall trend over the past decade.

“Over a time base of 11 years it’s the opposite,” Lacroix said. “The agglomeration increases have been a lot more than the local increase.”

Beaconsfield’s agglomeration payments have risen by 56.6 per cent during that period, while its local budget has comparatively risen by just 12.6 per cent, according to Boileau and Lacroix.

Beaconsfield Mayor Georges Bourelle has been vocal in his opposition to the growing price tag of these agglomeration payments for demerged cities. He has argued that the City of Montreal has taken advantage of demerged cities by overtaxing residents, while giving these cities little voting power at agglomeration council meetings.

Bourelle is at the forefront of an ongoing lawsuit against the Montreal Agglomeration Council for what he claims is an over taxation of residents of these demerged cities. The council treats demerged cities and their taxpaying residents as a “cash cow,” Bourelle told The 1510 West in December.

Beaconsfield taxpayers will receive municipal tax bills to be paid in three instalments in 2024, Boileau explained. First, residents will receive their agglomeration tax bills this month to be paid in two installments – one in February, and the other in May. The local tax bill will be distributed in November to be paid in December.