Windsor City Council has been able to achieve a zero per cent property tax increase in the 2026 budget that included some adjustments to items raised by members of the public.
During Monday's budget deliberations, Mayor Drew Dilkens announced changes around three items that differed from the original proposed budget-the reintroduction of the Transit Windsor Route 1000 along with reduced increases to transit fares and city recreation user fees.
As part of the approved budget, the city is going to reintroduce the Transit Windsor Route 1000 in the coming weeks and have it run through to the end of 2026 to help support students attending Vincent Massey Secondary School and Holy Names Catholic High School, a move that will cost the city around $110,000 to fund.
City council eliminated the Transit Windsor 'school extras' in the 2025 budget that were designed to take pressure off regular routes during the school year, which included Route 1000, which ended in December 2025.
During budget delegations on January 12, council heard from a community group that asked that operation of Route 1000 be extended while they engaged with the school boards to discuss a long-term solution for the impacted students.
Dilkens says this is just one bus, not the entire 'school bus extra' system, and it's just for one year.
"At the end of this year it is done if the school board does not come on board to help fund this. I think it's fair to say that we're tired of subsidizing this service as city taxpayers when folks in the county are being picked up at the end of their driveway," he says.
The proposed 2026 budget also called for a fare increase for Transit Windsor from $3.75 to $4, but that has been reduced by five cents to $3.95, a $180,000 decision.
Mayor Dilkens also called for a 3 per cent increase in recreation user fees, reversing any increase above that, as some fee increases were as high as 8 per cent in the originally proposed 2026 budget.
But Dilkens says the user fee increases didn't magically appear; there is a council-approved policy to get to a 45 per cent cost recovery on recreation user fees.
"The numbers just didn't appear out of the air. They were following the policy that was approved by the city council. We dialled it back a little bit on a certain portion of the fees. The rest of them are going up in accordance with the user fee schedule. We'll reflect on those recreation fees, and it will only be 3 per cent for 2026," he says.
The total cost for the three changes is $389,000, which will be covered through a reduced contribution to a city budget stabilization reserve.
Overall, Dilkens says a zero per cent increase is a good number.
"I think what you saw around the table today is the majority of the council saying, 'Yes, we want to get to zero as well.' There wasn't any effort to add numbers back to the budget, certainly nothing material, I would say. Everyone coalesced around that because at the end of the day we know affordability is a central issue in the community," he says.
Council voted Monday not to introduce any further amendments, with the mayor agreeing to no vetoes, officially finalizing the budget.