Ron Shulman | The South Georgian Bay Project | shulmanr.substack.com
Start Here: Your Tax Bill
On a home assessed at $1,000,000, the municipal portion of your tax bill today stands at $4,428. By 2028, the operating deficit alone — driven by a cost structure that grew without discipline and a revenue model that has since collapsed — will require a levy increase of approximately 45 percent to close. That takes your municipal bill to roughly $6,400.
Before debt service. Before infrastructure. Before anything else.
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That number is not a projection from a critic. It is arithmetic derived from TBM’s own approved budgets. It is the cost of doing nothing about operating costs. And it is entirely the result of decisions made by the current council.
This council represents only 29 percent of TBM’s eligible voters. In 2022, 4,073 people voted out of 13,903 eligible.
Craigleith — the community that generates the most tax revenue and carries the highest concentration of renters and non-resident property owners — is almost certainly underrepresented in that number. It is also the community that will feel this crisis most directly.
This is how it happened.
Note: This article covers the operating cost problem only. The debt crisis — a separate and compounding problem — is covered in our next article.
TBM Has Been Living Off Development Charges
TBM’s financial model was not built on tax revenues. It was built on growth.
Between 2015 and 2021, Development Charge collections grew from $3.45 million to a peak of $9.38 million — a 171 percent increase in six years. Over that same period, the DC reserve swelled from $1.3 million to $32.6 million, the largest capital war chest in the town’s history. Council treated this as structural income. It was not. It was a wave.
The organization grew to match it. Staff were hired. Capital programmes were approved on the assumption that development revenues would continue to climb. Between 2016 and 2021, TBM was the second fastest-growing municipality in Canada at 33 percent. The money was real. The trajectory was not.
In 2022, collections dropped 63 percent in a single year — from $9.18 million to $3.36 million — as rising interest rates froze development across Georgian Bay. The operating structure did not shrink. The capital commitments did not shrink.
TBM began drawing down the reserve to cover the gap. By 2024, it was spending $14.98 million per year from DC reserves against collections of $6.07 million. The reserve, once $32.6 million, now sits at an estimated $26 million and is falling.
And then the bomb hit.
The DC reserve is a capital fund. It cannot legally be used to cover operating costs. That distinction — and its consequences — is the subject of our next article.
In April 2024, TBM raised its Development Charge rates to shore up a collapsing reserve. Four developers appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal. The tribunal ruled against TBM and cut rates across the board — by as much as 35 percent — with automatic refunds owed to anyone who had paid at the higher rates since the increase. The funding model did not just slow down. It was cut by legal order.
The cushion is gone. What remains underneath it is the cost structure that the boom built.
The Operating Deficit
The trajectory is unambiguous. In 2026, TBM’s operating position turns negative for the first time. Expenses reach $52 million while revenue sits at $51.8 million. The deficit is $200,000.
It is the first crack. By 2027 the deficit climbs to $6.33 million. By 2028 it reaches $10.28 million — with no new capital approved, simply the cost of running a municipality whose expenses are growing at 7 to 8 percent per year while its revenue base stalls.
The Primary Driver: Staffing
TBM’s headcount grew 63 percent over the past decade. Salaries, benefits, and overhead compound annually. The town pays at P60 — the 60th percentile of the Ontario municipal compensation market, the highest salary grid in the region.
To understand how far out of control this growth became, consider the comparisons:
• TBM: 192 FTE for 12,000 residents — 16.0 per 1,000, one staff member for every 62 residents.
• Collingwood: 270 FTE for 29,000 residents — 9.3 per 1,000.
• Wasaga Beach: 216 FTE for 30,000 residents — 7.2 per 1,000.
TBM’s ratio is not an outlier. It is an indictment. Most expensive pay grid. Most staff per resident. Smallest population served.
And what does it buy? The Craigleith Main Sewage Lift Station, Mill Street Sewage Pumping Station, and Bay Street–Grey Street Linear Works was estimated at $34.79 million. It escalated to $53.56 million — an $18.77 million overrun — with no alarm raised at any project milestone, no council notification until the damage was done.
TBM is paying for an A team. It has a C team. Council, whose fiduciary responsibility was to ask the questions that were never asked, seems to have been entirely absent from the field.
A Message to Renters
At an average rent of $3,200 per month, a 45 percent municipal tax increase adds approximately $200 per month to the cost of carrying a rental property. That increase goes directly into the rent. If you are renting in TBM, your landlord’s problem becomes your problem — on the first of next month.
Here is what most renters do not know. Under Ontario law, if you rent in TBM, you are eligible to vote in TBM’s municipal election — as a resident elector. You do not need to own property. You need only live here.
And here is the second thing most renters do not know: the property owner — the Toronto investor who owns your building — is also eligible to vote in TBM, as a non-resident elector. Both votes count equally. The owner and the renter can both vote in the same election for the same municipality.
To register, go to RegisterToVoteOn.ca. The deadline to register online is August 12, 2026. After that date, contact the TBM municipal clerk directly. You will need one piece of ID showing your name and TBM address — a utility bill, a bank statement, a credit card statement, or a pay stub will do.
The council that created this crisis was elected by 4,073 people. You can change that number.
The Real Estate Fallout
The financial consequences of inaction do not stop at the tax bill. A significant share of TBM’s properties — particularly in Craigleith and the ski communities — are investment and rental properties owned by non-residents.
Buyers will do their homework. A municipal tax bill approaching $6,400 on a $1,000,000 home — with no credible plan to stabilize it, and a debt crisis still to come — is a material risk that shows up in every purchase decision. Sophisticated buyers will walk. Less sophisticated ones will be advised to by their lawyers and financial advisors.
More sellers. Fewer buyers. That is not a recipe for a stable real estate market.
There Is a Solution, But It Will Take Grit
The answer is staff reductions. Significant ones.
This is not a statement made lightly. The people who work for TBM are not the problem. Many of them are competent professionals doing their jobs. The problem is the size of the organization relative to the population it serves and the revenue base that funds it. That gap is structural and it will not close on its own.
What is required is a disciplined, professionally managed review of every position in the organization — not a slash, not a freeze, but a rigorous zero-based assessment of what services residents actually need and how many people it genuinely takes to deliver them. Benchmarked against peers. Managed with fairness to the individuals affected and a clear plan for transition.
This is not comfortable work. It will require a council with the backbone to commission it, the discipline to act on its findings, and the integrity to explain it honestly to the community. That is a high bar. It is the bar that the financial reality requires.
A Regional Solution
The case for regional collaboration is not ideological. It is arithmetic. Two towns, side by side, attempting to solve — ineffectively — the same problems, paying twice, and delivering less.
Regionalization requires structured cooperation between TBM and Collingwood — shared functions that neither municipality needs to run independently. Planning, procurement, recreation, transit, and more. The savings are significant. The case is made in detail in The Georgian Bay Compact (shulmanr.substack.com/p/the-georgian-bay-compact).
This argument is not about amalgamation. It is not about the loss of either town’s identity. It is about two adjacent communities that can no longer afford the luxury of parallel overhead. The financial reality of TBM makes this not a policy preference but a necessity.
The October 2026 Election
None of this happens under the current council. They built this structure. They approved every hire, every compensation grid, every capital commitment that compounded the problem. They have shown no recognition that a crisis exists, let alone the will to act on it.
The October 2026 election is not a routine exercise in local democracy. It is a financial emergency dressed in a ballot.
You and I need to elect a council that walks in on day one understanding exactly what it is inheriting — and is prepared to act.
The math does not wait for political courage. It simply accumulates.
The Bottom Line
If nothing changes: your taxes will go up.
Your rent will go up.
Your property values will go down.
And this is only half the problem. Part 2 covers TBM’s debt — $72 million and growing. Managing it will add another $1,286 to your tax bill and a further $200 per month to your rent. Next version coming soon.
Subscribe to The South Georgian Bay Project at shulmanr.substack.com to be notified when Part 2 is published.
Thanks for reading TBM’s Operating Crisis: You and I Are Going to Pay… Here Is Why
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