Annual Budgets

The City is collecting more in property taxes this year to cover rising costs related to factors such as:

• labour costs including salaries and wages, employee benefits, and insurance
• improvements to services, facilities, and infrastructure
• increased demand for City services

What’s driving increases to the budget? The following are the drivers for 2025:

Net Revenues

Development and construction related application and permit revenues, pay parking revenues, grant revenues, and program and user fees are projected to increase by $2,651,000. A significant portion of these increases are offset with reserve transfers.

Salaries, wages, and benefits

Salaries, wages, and benefits have increased by $2,254,000. This represents estimated collective agreement increases for all the bargaining units and management and related overhead and benefit costs such as: WorkSafeBC premiums, extended health benefits, the employer portion of the Canadian Pension Plan (CPP), Employment Insurance (EI), and the Employer Health Tax.

Operating expenses

Operating expenses are increasing by $549,000. This represents inflationary increases for operating expenses such as insurance, equipment, fuel, contracted services, utilities, legal services, professional services, leases, etc.

Reserve Transfers

Transfers to and from reserves are increasing by $1,410,000. This increase is primarily related to the increase in development-related revenues.

Accumulated Surplus Funding

A strategic one-time allocation of $695,000 from the accumulated surplus to fund a range of key initiatives.

Port Moody Police

The Port Moody Police’s provisional budget submission is anticipated to represent a base increase of $1,459,000.

Capital Asset Levy

The Capital Asset Levy has increased by an estimated 1% or $584,000. This is consistent with past practice and ensures that the Asset Reserve and associate capital envelopes have sufficient funds to renew and replace critical city infrastructure. 

Service Impacts

New funding requirements for 2025 are broken down into the four areas of service impacts. These include:

• Response to Growth Driven Service Requirements - $181,000
• Response to Mitigate Risk and Provide Efficiency Gains -$209,000
• Response to Statutory and Legislative Requirements - $113,000
• Response to Council Direction - $58,000

New Tax Revenue

Growth or Non-Market Change (NMC), which represents an estimate of increases in taxable values unrelated to market increases, as not been included in the draft financial plan.  As a preliminary placeholder included in the adjustments and amendments to the Draft Financial Plan, staff are including $134,000 for 2025 growth.  This figure will be further refined as updated information is received from BC Assessment.

As set by Council Policy, and as required by provincial legislation, Port Moody Fire Rescue (PMFR) provides service at the “Full-Service Operations Level”. This means PMFR has a responsibility to ensure it has the appropriate equipment, apparatus, personnel, and training in place to deliver the declared service level capabilities and requirements.

To consider all resources and staffing models in the department and anticipated future needs of the City PMFR conducted a review of all services in 2022. With growth and the changing nature of the built environment, such as with the introduction of high-rise buildings, complexities of emergency response capability needs have increased. To continue to ensure timely lifesaving response, PMFR identified a need to add more full-time firefighters to the department over the next decade. Furthermore, the long-term viability of the Volunteer Firefighter Program was being evaluated.

As part of stringent budget planning this fall, detailed financial reviews of all City programs were undertaken to identify where cost savings or efficiencies could be gained. Through that process a review of an earlier phase out of the Port Moody Volunteer Firefighter program was conducted, and some key factors were identified that contributed to the decision to phase out the program in 2025. These include:

• Significant changes over the last few decades to firefighting legislation and WorkSafe requirements
• New provincial guidelines on training of volunteer firefighters, which also impact PMFR’s training division
• Port Moody volunteer firefighters are trained for lower risk level exterior operations only 
• Increasing recruitment and retention costs due to high volunteer turnover, which is up to 50% in recent years, is not sustainable to maintain a level of qualified volunteers. Over the years there has been a declining number of long-term volunteers remaining with the City. Although a small number have become Port Moody career firefighters, the majority have moved to career positions with other municipal fire departments. These declining numbers have resulted in the program not being sustainable.
• Declining use of volunteer firefighters in emergency incident response in recent years
• Availability of mutual aid reciprocal agreement with all GVRD fire departments including Coquitlam Fire Rescue for urgent response support
• A strategy already underway to add more full-time career firefighters to the department

In phasing out the Volunteer Firefighter program, Port Moody Fire Rescue emergency response service level is not impacted. PMFR received Council approval in the 2025 provisional budget to phase in two new full-time career firefighter positions in 2025.  

In recognizing the ongoing exceptional contributions by Volunteer Firefighters in supporting community events and fundraisers, PMFR will be working with the volunteers to explore ways to continue to provide volunteer activities associated with the PMFR and recognize the legacy of the Port Moody Volunteer Firefighter Program. More information will be shared once available.