Kawartha Lakes has mapped out a costly decade ahead. Before residents are asked to finance it, they should be able to see what today's spending is producing.

Kawartha Lakes' Long-Term Financial Plan projected property-tax increases averaging 7 per cent a year from 2026 through 2035 - 5 per cent for operations and 2 per cent for infrastructure. Council did not approve 10 years of tax increases in advance, and the 2026 increase was 5.9 per cent. But 7 per cent was the city's long-range planning assumption.

Compounded for 10 years, 7 per cent annually is almost 97 per cent. A $4,000 municipal tax bill would approach $7,870 before assessment changes, growth, area rates and future council decisions.

The pressures are real. Roads and bridges age. Labour and emergency services cost more. Infrastructure must be replaced. Kawartha Lakes also serves a large seasonal population that is not captured by permanent-population figures alone.

Those pressures may justify higher taxes. They do not remove the city's obligation to show what taxpayers receive for the money already being spent.

The city already knows how to measure performance

Kawartha Lakes is not starting from zero. Its 2025 Asset Management Plan tracks conditions and service levels for about $5.38 billion in municipal assets.

A clearer operating example comes from Paramedic Services. Its 2025 reporting covered more than 14,000 calls and included response performance, ambulance use, cost per ambulance hour and Code Zero periods, when no local ambulance was available.

The service reported that Code Zero occurrences had fallen by just over 90 per cent from 2023, while cost per ambulance hour remained stable and overall spending remained in line with Ontario municipal averages. That is what a useful scorecard does: it identifies the demand, cost and result, including good news.

We could find no single public scorecard that does the same for the city's major operating services. During amalgamation, restructuring commissioner Harry Kitchen recommended a taxpayer report card showing unit costs and performance. More than 25 years later, the principle remains sound.

The workforce numbers need reconciling

Kitchen's pre-amalgamation work reported 443 full-time employees across Victoria County and its local governments. Detailed 2026 tax-supported budget schedules add to about 771 full-time equivalent positions. A separate city workforce presentation reported about 840 core FTEs and said more than 1,500 people deliver municipal services when broader employee categories are included.

Those figures are not like-for-like. Responsibilities changed. Land ambulance became a municipal responsibility. Water and wastewater operations changed. Police, libraries, long-term care, seasonal staff and other categories may be counted differently. Contracting also moves labour cost outside the employee headcount.

That is exactly why the city should reconcile the numbers. The headline figures are substantially different, but without a like-for-like historical reconciliation they cannot show how much staffing has actually grown on a comparable basis. Taxpayers deserve to know which new responsibilities, categories and accounting changes explain the difference - and what change remains after the figures are made comparable.

The $7.5-million efficiency exercise needs a score

Council adopted the 2026 budget after removing about $7.5 million on the expectation that equivalent operating efficiencies would be found. The work was not complete when the budget was approved.

By June 30, the city was forecasting a year-end operating deficit of about $10.7 million. Winter control alone accounted for roughly $4 million of that pressure. By August, work was still continuing on approximately $7.6 million in council-directed efficiencies.

Weather, fuel prices and emergencies can upset a budget. But the efficiency exercise itself is measurable: How much recurring efficiency was identified? How much was implemented? How much will actually be realized? Which services changed? Did service levels fall?

Calling something an efficiency target is not the same as achieving an efficiency.

Roads show why standards matter

Kawartha Lakes maintains about 5,400 lane-kilometres of road. Its geography makes road service unusually difficult. Our analysis found more than 640 kilometres of municipal road in Ward 1 and about 120 kilometres in Ward 5. Permanent population per kilometre differs dramatically.

That does not determine what either ward should spend. Seasonal residents, traffic, agriculture, schools, road class and emergency access all matter. It does show why a citywide average can hide very different service conditions.

The city already works under provincial Minimum Maintenance Standards and council-approved winter-maintenance policies. So publish the results. How often were standards met? What is the maintenance backlog? What does a lane-kilometre cost? How quickly are serious defects repaired? How much work is contracted? How much do road conditions improve for the money spent?

Without those answers, residents cannot distinguish an inefficient operation from an underfunded one. One may need reform. The other may need more money.

ELECTION QUESTION: Will you require an independently checkable annual scorecard showing the standard, demand, complete cost and actual result for every major municipal service?

Tax increases may ultimately be necessary. But before residents are told what they must pay next, they should be shown clearly what they received for what they already paid.