Full 2026 Budget is Finally Here

Forgive my posting absence. I am working on a law degree through a UK school and so I have been busy studying for mid terms.

At the upcoming February 10 5PM committee meeting (agenda here) for North Cowichan, the full 2026 operating, capital, and utility budgets are finally being presented. This comes in the format of a 50-page powerpoint for the operating and capital budget with a 6 page staff report and a 4-page staff report about the Utility budget and a 20-page powerpoint.

As for next steps for these two agenda items, Council is advised that they can host an Open House with public input period for the public on February 24 starting at 4:30PM so that the public can be consulted on the 2026 budget.

And it is here that I want to add a correction because I had been mistakenly thinking that municipalities in BC followed the Fiscal year framework of (April 1 through March 31) however, looking at section 164 of the Community Charter, I see that the fiscal year is the calendar year.

So this means, that the fiscal year has already started without an approved budget or plan. This also explains why the other municipalities I surveyed in a previous blog post had already nailed down their 2026 budgets and tax rates months prior to North Cowichan.

Now I will refer to section 166 of the Community Charter because this is where it is written that:

Public process for development of financial plan

166  A council must undertake a process of public consultation regarding the proposed financial plan before it is adopted.

I don’t know about you, but asking my feedback on a budget when you are already nearly 3 months into the current fiscal, is not consultation.

I will refer you to new guidelines from the BC Office of the Ombudsperson regarding municipality transparency and open meetings. Check it out. I mention this because the Chief Administrative Officer for North Cowichan mentioned in a January meeting, that Mayor and Council had been engaged in “closed budget meetings” since August 2025. Why didn’t they or couldn’t they have held consultations back then?

Likewise, why didn’t Council notice when they recently amended their 5 year financial plan bylaw that it included a significant year over year reduction in proposed revenues and expenses for 2026? Someone should have noticed this.

Here is a screenshot from page 5 of the recently amended 5 year financial plan bylaw

Let’s now get into the substance of this newly released and surely complete 2026 operating and capital budget.

These 2026 budget documents from the Municipality are honestly embarrassing because they read like high school kids planning a summer business, not professional staff and professional elected representatives diligently managing an annual budget that was $112 million in 2025 as shown in the amended 5-year financial plan bylaw and from what I can see, an unspecified total amount for 2026.

I know that I have have already blogged about how I thought the documentation revealed to the public in December 2024 regarding the 2025 budget was odd because it was just a pages and pages of text bullets and graphics regarding the various business plans of the municipality, but at least the business plans were revealed which they have not yet been for the 2026 fiscal.

Instead, all that is publicly provided so far for 2026 in this 50-page powerpoint, is screenshots of the operating expenses (wages etc) set out by municipal department. The office of the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) a man named Ted Swabey has more than $800 thousand set for it:

The North Cowichan 2026 Budget for the CAOs office

What does this mean? How many people work in this office? It is completely unclear. Lets look at the content for Bylaw Enforcement:

2026 Budget for bylaw enforcement - this is the group that pays the costs of street disorder and homeless encampments

Here is the 2026 budget for the planning and building group - planning revenue is expected to increase but building revenues will decrease?

You’ll have to look at the operation and capital powerpoint to see the rest of the departments. I will however show you this one last screenshot because it seems as though the Municipality has a thriving equipment rental business with $2.2 million in proposed revenues. For what though?

Content from the 2026 proposed North Cowichan Budget - what does it mean?

I’ll note that you have to read the staff report that accompanies the 2026 budget powerpoint to get total dollar values for the operating budget.

A summary table of the 9.5% increase in North Cowichan Operating Expenses from 2025 - 2026

Let’s move on now to proposed Capital spending in 2026 for the Municipality of North Cowichan:

2026 capital funding revenues for the Municipality of North Cowichan - an amount that is significantly higher than the $6.9 million for capital as set out within the updated five year financial plan bylaw that was recently updated by Council. Does this mean that 2026 projects are just a carry over from uncompleted 2025 projects I wonder?

Pages 46, 47, 48 of this powerpoint provide a bulleted list of proposed projects for 2026. Here is the proposed road work section of the budget:

The proposed 2026 roadworks section of the North Cowichan Capital Budget with zero information on costs or priority

For those who have been reading my blog posts, I have asked repeatedly for accountability regarding the accomplishment of capital projects on a year over year basis because public data on municipal capital planning seems to indicate that the municipality never seems to spend their full budget, either because projects weren’t finished, or because funding didn’t come in and the work was never started.

Is there someone in the municipality that keeps tabs on all of this I wonder? Shouldn’t the conservatives on Council like Findley and Manhas be carefully tracking money spent? Likewise, for all of the bluster from Istace about how North Cowichan needs to protect its infrastructure, is he monitoring capital project follow through?

Now let’s move on to the Utility portion of the budget. The staff report provides a useful summary on water and sewer fees as individually set for each water and sewer provided across the municipality. The charges very depending on if you are in Chemainus, or Crofton, or Maple Bay, or the South End (ie. Duncan area). The report ends with this call to action:

In staff’s opinion, the current reserve levels are inadequate to support the municipality’s projected growth and the increasing demands of our aging infrastructure. A comprehensive review of utility rates is therefore essential to ensure long-term financial sustainability. This review will help align future fees with the anticipated needs identified in the 10-year capital plan, while also accounting for expected operational cost increases. Establishing rates that accurately reflect these future requirements will better position the utility to maintain reliable service and proactively address infrastructure renewal.

As for sewer and water related capital budgets for 2026, you have to read the powerpoint carefully to find the projects listed by area water or sewer source, in small type, hidden within highschool like graphics including the following examples:

2026 Proposed South End water system capital projects - graphics in blue for water?

Proposed Chemainus 2026 sewer capital projects - graphics in brown like poop I wonder?

Proposed Crofton sewer capital expenditures - graphics in brown like poop I wonder?

To help with accountability, I made a specific table to add up the proposed utility projects and I get a total of $35,531,676. a figure which is actually somewhat on par with the $23 million for sewer capital and $9 million for water capital anticipated in 2026 as set out within the updated 2025 five year financial plan bylaw.

a summary table of proposed water and sewer capital projects for 2026

In closing, I strongly believe that we need to remove the majority of the current members of Council because they fail at accountability and they fail at transparency. This laughable 2026 budget is but one small example of why the majority of current members of Council need to be replace.

A reasonable person would assume that a diligent Council would be able to clearly justify a 10.62% tax rate increase in an era whereby the average homeowner is struggling to make their own budgets balance. What good our elected representatives if they’re unable to manage municipal budgets? As seen in the 2026 budget for North Cowichan, our current Council is not in control.