West K council cuts provisional budget for 2026

Dec 5, 2025 | 4:37 PM

The City of West Kelowna has a draft budget of $133-million for 2026 featuring a possible 7.6 per cent increase.

Two days of deliberations this week saw council reduce the staff-proposed operational budget by $480,000 and further reduced capital spending by $2.8 million.

The focus of the budget is public safety, building future reserves, and providing needed capital projects to meet growth.

There’s a public feedback opportunity Wednesday December 10 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at City Hall.

In a media release Friday, the City said Council’s reduction of the staff-proposed operational budget equated to a one per cent lower budget increase for municipal taxes than what was proposed and strengthens reserves for future Council’s success.

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The proposed 7.6 per cent increase includes a 4.78 per cent base increase for labour costs, inflation and RCMP operations.The remaining increase of 2.82 per cent will transfer an additional $980,486 to fund annual capital projects and cover supplemental service requests.

In 2026 this includes: A commitment to fund 2.5 RCMP officers but not authorizing this hiring until negotiations with the provincial government on policing are concluded.

There’s an online opportunity for public feedback on the budget at the city’s website.

by Vernon Matters Staff

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