West Kelowna council directs staff to find cuts in 2026 budget

Looking for budget cuts

Photo: Wayne Moore/file

West Kelowna is looking to trim its 2026 tax increase by one per cent.

West Kelowna council wants options on how it can trim the 2026 property tax increase by one per cent.

The current 2026 financial plan includes a 7.6 per cent tax increase, however, after hearing from residents since setting that number in early December, council came back Tuesday seeking to bring that number down.

While Coun. Rick de Jong suggested getting down to 6 per cent and Coun Garrett Millsap was good somewhere between six and 6.5 per cent, council settled on a 6.6 per cent number recommended by Mayor Gord Milsom.

How the city gets there—either through a reduction in the 2 per cent levy to prop up future reserves, reduce services or a combination of the two—will be up to city staff to figure out.

What was clear Tuesday though, council was split on how to get there.

“There is no way we can get lower without a cut in services,” said de Jong, who told his colleagues he heard loud and clear from the public during the holiday break that they wished to see services cut as a way to cut taxes.

“We have to worry about today. I’m sorry, but we can’t put money into reserves,” countered Coun. Carol Zanon.

“Cutting is just kicking this down the road,” added Coun. Tasha Da Silva. “I would like to keep or increase services. I think transfer to reserves is the only place to cut.”

Da Silva rationalized the city is growing and these services will need to be increased as that growth happens and cutting them would only put the city further behind.

Coun. Stephen Johnston told council the city is where it is right now because of poor decisions made by past councils, saying council may have to work with what they have.

While council agreed to ask staff to come back with recommendations on where it can find that one per cent, Da Silva asked that all options be brought back, both in cuts to reserve transfers and cuts in services.

Council also deferred third reading of the financial plan while it awaits recommendations from staff at a future meeting.

Council also trimmed $43,000 from the grant-in-aid requests.

At the recommendation of Mayor Milsom, council approved grants-in-aid at the same level as last year, meaning organizations seeking additional grant funding were denied that extra money while requests from new organizations were denied entirely.