Reasons to be Concerned
The Town of Cobourg is a similar, Lower-Tier, municipality that is nearly identical to Owen Sound in population, population-density and the number of occupied dwellings. Both municipalities fund their own police and fire departments. However, these municipalities manage their reponsibilities to taxpayers very differently as you will see below.The Perfect Comparator
As you can see in the above table, Cobourg is the perfect comparator for Owen Sound. In the chart below we compare these municipalities in Revenue from Taxation, Salaries Expense, Debt Payments and Police Expense.
What the Numbers Tell Us
The comparison chart above highlights a significant difference between Owen Sound and Cobourg: Owen Sound collects approximately $6.9 million more in taxes.Higher taxation should be supported by higher levels of service yet there is very little difference in service levels between these municipalities. These differences were brought to Council's attention three years ago and to date no explanation to justify this sizable difference in taxes has been provided. In this comparison, a substantial portion of the difference appears to be associated with higher operating expenses related to apparent overstaffing.
Owen Sound spends approximately $3.3 million more on salaries than Cobourg. This is consistent with the latest Financial Information Returns submitted by the two municipalities. These Returns show that Owen Sound employs 39 more Full-Time employees than Cobourg. When we divide the difference in Salaries and Benefits expense by the 39 additional employees, we get an average cost for Salaries and Benefits of $86,400 per employee which is consistent with previous studies which showed the largest difference to be at the management level.
The differences don't stop there. Owen Sound also spends approximately $2.7 million more on debt payments and $1.7 million more on policing.
Together, these three categories account for an additional $7.7 million in expenses—more than the $6.9 million difference in taxes collected.
The question for Owen Sound taxpayers is simple: Why does our city need to spend so much more, to provide very similar services? This is so much more than our larger snow-removal budget, that some have raised in the past in an attempt to justify the differences. As well, trying to compare Owen Sound's expenses to those of single-tier municipalities with much larger populations, as city staff once did, just serves to highlight the fact that there is simply no justification for the nearly $7 million gap in revenue from taxation.
This is not simply a question of how much we pay in taxes. It is a question of how efficiently our tax dollars are being used, what level of service taxpayers are receiving in return, and whether there are opportunities to deliver those services at a much lower cost.
Remember, high taxes result in high rents.
The numbers deserve to be examined, and taxpayers deserve clear answers.
Feel free to check our numbers. Here are the references:
| Cobourg 2026 Budget | Cobourg Audited Financial Statements | |
| Owen Sound 2026 Budget | Owen Sound Audited Financial Statements |