Where your tax dollars go

Your tax dollars go toward City services and infrastructure such as:

• maintaining roads, sidewalks and trails
• collecting garbage and maintaining the landfill
• picking up and processing compostable materials from your Green Bin
• building and operating the sanitary sewer and sewage treatment systems to protect public health and the environment
• providing social services
• supporting affordable housing
• running recreation programs
• implementing sustainability initiatives
• Peterborough Transit
• Peterborough Police Service, Peterborough Fire Services, and Peterborough Paramedics

Every day, you use community services or infrastructure in some way.

Find overviews, highlights, and details on budget for each service program area:

• Arts and Culture budget
• Asset Management and Capital Planning budget
• Building Services budget
• Capital Financing and Other Financial budget
• City Clerk's Office budget
• City Council budget
• Community Services Administration, including community grants budget
• Court Services budget
• Emergency and Risk Management budget
• Environmental Services budget
• Facilities and Property Management budget
• Financial Services budget
• Fire Services budget
• Information Services budget
• Legal Services budget
• Materials Management budget
• Municipal Law Enforcement Services budget
• Office of the Chief Administrative Officer budget
• Office of the Infrastructure, Planning and Growth Management Commissioner budget
• People and Culture budget
• Peterborough Airport budget
• Peterborough Public Library budget
• Planning, Development and Urban Design budget
• Public Works budget
• Recreation and Park Services budget
• Social Services budget
• Strategic Communications and Service Peterborough budget
• Transfers to Organizations for Provision of Services budget
• Transit budget

Through direction provided by City Council, the City drafts a budget that reflects community priorities, expected service levels and legislated responsibilities.

The Draft 2025 Budget includes $411.3 million in spending on municipal services and $147.4 million in capital investments.

Draft 2025 Budget Book

Breakdown of what a residential taxpayer pays (Draft 2025 Budget)

Use our interactive OpenBook budget tool to view a breakdown of what a residential taxpayer pays for each municipal services.

The Where Your Tax Dollars Go feature shows how much a residential taxpayer pays per $100,000 of assessment. It starts at the City Department level then you can click on each department to view the cost for services within that department. For example:

• Click on Municipal Operations and it goes to the service/division level, where you can see the typical residential taxpayer pays $85.41 per $100,000 of assessment, or 5.22% of the municipal tax dollar for that service
• Click on Outside Organizations at the top level of the tool and it breaks it down to individual outside organizations that receive City funding, showing that the typical residential taxpayer pays $300.42 per $100,000 of assessment, or 18.36% of the municipal tax dollar for that service

See where your municipal tax dollar goes for municipal services. Explore the OpenBook budget tool.

Interactive OpenBook budget tool

Capital budget

Every year, there are more capital projects and required infrastructure work that are needed than can be funded through the available capital budget. Even with help from the province and federal government, many projects that are needed or wanted are delayed to fit infrastructure spending within the available budget.

Online property tax calculator

Use our online property tax calculator to see a breakdown of your residential property taxes and where your tax dollars go. The calculator shows 2024 property tax amounts and the 2024 breakdown of where tax dollars go. Properties with commercial or other tax class components will get inaccurate results using this calculator.

Use our online property tax calculator

Purchasing

The City of Peterborough abides by our Procurement By-Law when we procure goods and services. Our bids and tenders process complies with this by-law.