• Mayor's speech
• Services for residents remain the priority
• Highlights
• Summary of revenues and expenditures

Budget 2013 (in French only)

Programme triennal d'immobilisations 2013-2014-2015 (in French only)

Services for residents remain the priority

Services for residents remain the priority is the theme defining the 2013 budget that Gatineau Municipal Council members adopted on December 4, 2012. With this $520,561,000 balanced budget, Gatineau is taking steps to address its obligations and at the same time maintain the quality of services for its residents. The Municipal Council intends to stay the course in terms of its investments in its infrastructures, such as roads, water treatment plants, arenas, libraries and community centres, which are instrumental in providing quality services. In preparing this budget, the Municipal Council was intent on providing Gatineau residents with a set of services and measures that met their expectations. The 2013 budget focused on four key issues: preserving and improving services for the public, increasing investments in infrastructures, growing in a manner that is sustainable and protects the environment, and planning a realistic and responsible budget.

Marc Bureau Mayor of Gatineau

Highlights

Preserving and improving services for the public

• $15.4 million for clearing snow from streets and sidewalks.
• Injecting $3.1 million to stay on track in terms of financing 700 affordable social housing units by the end of 2013.
• Investing $1.2 million in the Rénovation Québec program.
• Pursuing the implementation of the fire safety cover plan by adding $1.3 million to the operating budget, mainly to hire eight firefighters, bringing the Service de sécurité incendie budget to $33 million.
• Injecting $1.2 million into the police organization plan, mainly to hire additional resources, bringing the Service de la sécurité publique budget to $60.8 million.
• Allocating $1.3 million for the social development policy.
• Allocating $1.2 million in support of celebrations, festivals and events.
• Adding $1.2 million to improve services, specifically $359,500 for the heritage policy, $250,000 for the management plan for trees and woodlots, $182,000 for the cultural policy, $50,000 for the outdoors policy, and $92,379 for the Cabane en bois rond.

Increasing investments in infrastructures

• In total, Gatineau will allocate $102 million to its infrastructures in 2013.
• $22.5 million will go to improving roads, including:
• $16 million for road repairs,
• $1.5 million for bridges,
• $1 million for speed reduction measures,
• $950,000 for farming roads, and
• $500,000 for missing sidewalks.
• $2 million will be used to top up the life cycle reserve for the maintenance of new equipment.
• $21.1 million will go to water supply and sewer systems.
• $15 million, a steady source of financing from the federal Gas Tax Fund, to upgrade water and wastewater treatment plants to modernize the ones in the Buckingham and Hull sectors.
• $10.1 million to maintain municipal buildings.
• $6.2 million for the Programme particulier d'urbanisme (PPU) special planning program, and the Fonds de développement des communautés. Of this amount, $4 million will be used to develop the downtown, and $2.2 million will go to the Fonds de développement des communautés for community centres, synthetic fields and parks.
• $5 million to purchase and replace vehicles and machinery.

Growing in a manner that is sustainable and protects the environment

• Sound residual materials management has enabled Gatineau to reduce its levy from $8.77 in 2013, from $137.73 to $128.96.
• $5.7 million in investments for parks, green spaces and recreational pathways.
• $1.3 million for the Rapibus, which is slated to open in the fall of 2013, for a $4 million increase in the assessed contribution to the Société de transport de l'Outaouais, which will total $49 million.
• Annual contribution of $350,000 to the Green Fund.
• The maintenance of $300,000 for the environmental policy.
• Opening of a new ecocentre in 2013, a $2.5 million investment.

Planning a realistic and responsible budget

• A $520,561,000 balanced budget.
• The three-year capital program for 2013, 2014 and 2015 is to provide investments in the order of $311 million.
• Because of the lower levies for residual materials management, which represents an average decrease of 0.4%, the average property tax increase for the residential sector will come to 2.5%.
• Of this 2.5%, only 1.5% will go to the operating budget. The remaining 1% will be allocated to infrastructures.

Summary of revenues

Summary of expenditures