The process to put together the 2026 city budget has begun. City staff have been directed to put together a draft budget using a set of budget directions put forward by Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and guided by the feedback from a pre-budget questionnaire and a series of ward by ward consultations last spring.

Mayor Sutcliffe laid out this year’s budget directions during a live-stream press confer-ence last Thursday during which he was joined by City Manager Wendy Stephanson and Finance and Corporate Services General Manager and Chief Financial Officer Cyril Rogers.

After outlining how the city has managed to keep property tax increases lower than most other major cities in Canada over the previous three years, Sutcliffe pointed to the key areas where city council has managed to maintain investments in transit, public safety and affordable housing.

“Working together we have made a lot of progress since 2022. But, we are also facing new challenges... tariffs, economic uncertainty, and the prospect of significant cuts to the federal public service.

“That’s why, even more so than the last three years, we need to bring a careful balanced approach to the next budget.”

Sutcliffe went on to reiterate his commitment to keeping tax increases as low as possible, while continuing to invest in key priorities to make Ottawa safer and more affordable “for everyone”.

Sutcliffe also said that the next budget will be able to accomplish all of the aforementioned by taking advantage of the $207 million in savings the city has managed to implement over the past three years while getting significant funding agreements from the provincial and federal levels of government specially in the area of public transit.

Despite the efforts made over the past three years and continue to be made, the 2026 budget will contain a property tax increase of 3.75 percent and increases of up to 2.9 per cent for most city operations and programs.

“This will not be an easy process It will take a lot of work to get there,” said Sutcliffe while also voicing his commitment to invest even more money in both public transit and public safety. “We have to invest in what natters most while keeping taxes affordable.”

When addressing public transit, Sutcliffe did not rule out possible increases to bot transit fares and the transit levy on the tax bill.

In terms of public safety, Sutcliffe said council will continue to invest additional dollars on policing to help implement a district policing model. To that end the budget direction report includes a 6.5 per cent increase in the police services budget.

The City’s finance staff now have less than six weeks to put together the 2026 draft budget using the guidelines set out in the budget directions report.

The 2026 draft budget will be tabled at a special city council meeting on Nov. 12.

Once the proposed draft budget is released residents will be able to submit questions to City staff through Engage Ottawa and register to make public presentation to the various standing committees, including the Ottawa Library Board, the Police Services Board and the Transit Commission, which will meet to discuss their respective depart-mental budgets between Nov. 12 and Dec. 8.

The proposed budget for 2026 will then be presented to council on Dec. 12 for final consideration and adoption.