Property assessment freeze in 2026 may force 'difficult decisions,' minister admits
Local governments facing potential service cuts, higher tax rates in 2026 budgets
The New Brunswick government says it hopes municipalities will be able to absorb a broad property assessment freeze in 2026 without raising tax rates on property owners.
But if municipal budget figures from this year are a guide, that may be a tall order.
At a news conference Wednesday, Aaron Kennedy, the minister responsible for Service New Brunswick, said he hopes municipalities will be able to scrape by in 2026 on revenue assessment increases they can generate outside the freeze and by making "difficult decisions" about how they spend money in their communities.
"I appreciate their frustration with the announcement, but I think when you take into consideration that sales and new construction and major renovations is excluded from the freeze there are many municipalities that won't have a freeze in their revenues," Kennedy said.
Will N.B.'s property assessment freeze actually help lower tax bills?In Saint John, Mayor Donna Reardon said the city has a number of financial obligations that are already fixed for next year, including negotiated wage increases for unionized employees, that cannot easily be managed in the absence of revenue growth.
"We have four unions we have contracts with and their wages won't be frozen," Reardon said.
"It's difficult."
Had a similar freeze been imposed in the current year, Saint John budget documents suggest the city would have had significant problems making ends meet.
Saint John did experience about $2 million in increased tax revenue this year from new construction, but that is well short of what would have been needed to finance a $6.8 million increase — or 3½ per cent — in municipal expenditures and a $2.6 million reduction in the city's tax rate in the 2025 budget.
Some combination of higher tax rates and service cuts adding up to $7 million or more would have been needed to make that budget balance under a freeze this year.
Saint
John is spending $64.4 million in 2025 on police and fire protection.
It accounts for one-third of the city's budget. The amount grows
annually and is up $2.4 million over last year. (Saint John Police Force)
Kennedy said a $63 million increase in funding to local governments from the province announced in this year's budget should also help soften the blow of the assessment freeze, although he said decisions on how much of those increases each municipality will receive will be made at a later date.
In 2018, during New Brunswick's last assessment freeze, 41 New Brunswick communities did eventually raise tax rates to finance their budgets that year.
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David Amos
Surprise Surprise Surprise
David Amos
Whereas Aaron Kennedy is also the minister responsible for Service New Brunswick perhaps he can finally return my Harley
Don Corey
It's interesting but not at all surprising that the Holt solution to the promise of quickly fixing this whole property tax mess is to just kick the can another year down the road. Freezing assessments sounds great, but municipalities need money to effectively function in a Canadian environment of high costs courtesy of the incompetent Trudeau government. Someone has to pay, and we all know who that is and will be.
Meanwhile, all those Holt election promises continue to become nothing more than a joke.
Steve Morningstar
Reply to Don Corey
If you have owned a house more than a couple years you are already up against the 10% max increase. Meaning this is only going to help people who just purchased homes. The large majority of seniors have lived in their house for years and this is not going to help at all.
Jack Bell
Reply to Steve Morningstar
That 10% increase will be year after year for potentially decades until you are paying for the overblown "value" of your house.