Guelph residents could see a tax hike of as much as 4.84 per cent for 2018.

On Thursday evening, the City of Guelph released its draft operating budget for next year, which will be presented to councillors by staff on Nov. 8. The recommended base budget comes in at just under $233 million, representing a 2.19-per-cent increase.

On top of the base budget, staff will be putting forward three items for consideration that could drive that rate up.

First are city department budget expansions that could raise taxes by as much as 1.4 per cent, or an extra $3.19 million in the budget. Among those additions are $524,700 for implementing front-end waste collection for multi-residential properties in Guelph, achieving one of the recommendations from the council-endorsed Solid Waste Management Master Plan, passed in 2014; $399,200 to hire four full-time paramedics, increasing service to one extra day shift in Guelph, with the budget citing an increase in delays to responding to emergency calls; $322,900 for an affordable housing incentive program, with $230,000 going into the affordable housing reserve and another $86,600 for one contract staff to implement the program approved by council in July; and $458,000 to expand yard waste collection to every two weeks.

The expansion package also recommends a number of new staff positions, such as $100,300 for a learning and development co-ordinator, who would be responsible for planning, co-ordinating and directing training and development programs; $100,300 for a WSIB claims and disability co-ordinator; $117,500 for a financial analyst for the city’s environmental services department; $158,900 for a financial strategy manager, who would lead the city’s new financial strategy team to “deliver specific advice on financial policy, long-term capital and funding forecasting, and supporting the city’s significant investment in city building and growth decisions,” according to the budget document; and $142,000 for an internal auditor.

There is also a request from staff for an additional one-per-cent levy to go toward the city’s infrastructure.

The request for the infrastructure levy will not be news to councillors, who were advised by staff during a September council meeting to maintain the program in order to help the city catch up on its repair backlog.

At the Sept. 26 meeting, city treasurer Tara Baker told councillors that while the levy introduced for the 2017 budget was a step in the right direction, similar levies would need to be done over the next decade to help the city catch up.

“What you approved last year was a major first step toward becoming sustainable, but the message from staff has always been that in order to reach sustainability, we need the additional one per cent over the next 10 years,” she said at the time.

“With that, we become sustainable approximately by the year 2032.”