By Staff
January 9th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
That city budget, the one that laid a 7.51% increase on the citizens of the city – the one that took the cumulative tax increase between 2018, when the current Council was first elected and then re-elected in 2002, up to 65.10%
Eric Stern, BRAG spokesperson said: “The City of Burlington released the full budget to the public on October 25th, 2024. With great fanfare, we were told the overall increase to our property taxes would be 4.97%. As we now know the Burlington line on our tax bill will increase by 7.51%, the city will spend 8.3% more in 2025, and the overall increase, after adding in taxes from the region and the Board of Education will be 5.82%.
When the budget was released, the Burlington Residents’ Action Group’s (BRAG) budget team, a group of volunteers, went to work. We divided up the budget and began a detailed review.
The detailed budget was made available on October, 25th and council voted on that budget 24 days later (November 18th).
In this short window, the BRAG team identified 25 areas of concern and submitted their list to the city, also on November 18th at 8:00 am. While the GetInvolved Burlington website indicated that the budget would be voted on during the council meeting on November 25th it turned out that council voted to “endorse” the budget on November 18th.
During the November 25th council meeting councillor Sharman asked staff to prepare a response to BRAG’s list of questions.
While the document is labelled as the Proposed 2025 Budget it is the Mayor’s budget from the very start.
The full response is available here: https://www.burlington.ca/en/council-and-city-administration/resources/Council/Council-Information-Packages/Council-Information-Package-December-13-2024.pdf
Stern said he is “is not impressed with the response and will in due course set out where we feel the city has failed its citizens; especially in their fiduciary responsibilities.”
He points to one item in the city response: the Neighbourhood parties:
Question: BRAG is not a group of party poopers but what is the true cost of this program? If 3 full- time people work on these programs the costs go from the $200,000 handed out to over $800,000. You’re giving us back our money but at what cost?
Response: The budget for the “Love My Neighbourhood” program is $32,000, supporting approximately 80 applications annually. This program is one of many initiatives overseen by the Neighbourhood Team, whose broader mandate includes community development and resident engagement across the City.
The question was pretty clear; the response certainly wasn’t.
It’s awesome to see the responses growing and the dissatisfaction being expressed by more residents.
Here’s some thoughts for Ward and Nisan if they want to justify their roles.
Transparency and Justification of Salaries:
Publish a detailed explanation of how compensation for the Mayor and Council members is determined. Include benchmarks …. what are the KPI’s ? Compare these figures to those in similarly sized municipalities.
Meaningful Public Engagement:
Redesign the public consultation process to include town hall meetings, transparent access to data, and mechanisms for residents to influence decisions beyond surveys.
Independent Oversight of Ward Reviews:
Appoint an independent, non-partisan commission to oversee the ward boundary review process. This will ensure fairness and help rebuild trust in city governance.
Accountability for Spending:
Conduct and publish more audits of council spending to ensure that public funds are being used responsibly and effectively.
This is about the future of our city and the well-being of all who live here. Leadership should prioritize the interests of the public over personal or political gain. City leaders need to address these concerns transparently and take meaningful steps to rebuild trust with the community.
oh …. has Nisan reigned yet as a result of his support for City admin staff ???
Now that would be “responsible”.
Well said Stephen, as always! I have become somewhat sceptical concerning how Burlington citizens appear to be accepting a series of events and disclosures that, normally, should cause serious civic unrest. BRAG’s revelation that the cumulative tax increase under the Meed Ward administration exceeds 67% is a case in point. Where is the righteous indignation and call to action that should be the natural result?
The quality of the responses to BRAG’s questions and the apparent failure to entertain any citizen proposals underlies an organizational cynicism that permeates City Hall. Staff seem to be openly complicit in a regime of quite transparent misinformation and deliberate deflections. A rather telling example is the Mayor’s latest Newsletter (link attached).
In it, she provides her perspective on 2024 and it is an interesting read. I wonder occasionally whether we inhabit the same city – we certainly have very different views on what she positions as accomplishments and positive directions. But the clearest and most appalling example of blatant self-interest is Council’s decision that its size and composition will remain the same. For those who are unaware, Burlington has the highest ratio of population to Councillors of any tier 2 municipality in Ontario – and by a very large margin. This is made even more alarming by the fact that these six Councillors and Mayor (seven individuals) also carry the duties (and the salaries) of Regional Councillors – unlike any of the other Halton municipalities. And the six Ward Councillors also have functional portfolios as Deputy Mayors; a fact that never escapes the mention of Councillor Nisan. So, is Burlington’s Council so effective, so efficient that it can carry a workload that no other municipality can bear? Do they not sleep? Practically and with the travesty of Strong Mayor powers aside, this means that only 4 people can determine the particulars of life for almost 200,000 people, with much anticipated future growth. And, given the opportunity to reform, reshape and rationalize a governance model that has been in place for over 16 years and that will not accommodate future demographics, why would they stand on the ‘status quo’? To be flippant, when you allow the monkeys to decide the size of the barrel, they’ll pick that which can hold the most bananas.
It’s a manifest case of self over public interest. Meed Ward is the highest paid Mayor in Ontario – again, by a healthy margin. Do her responsibilities and span of control exceed those of the Mayor of Mississauga? The six members of her ‘horse shoe table retinue’ double dip in the public trough. Their fiefdoms are accordingly the richest in the land. And we, the serfs, sit quietly by as they determine that no improvements are needed, that the pie will be carved exactly as before. And they contend that we have been involved in the decision, engaged by virtue of yet another survey (the contemporary version of a 15th century public notice nailed to a commons post). A review of Ward boundaries is apparently the next step. On its face, this would seem to be an attempt to equalize workload and make the challenges of representation more even. But I strongly expect that this is simply gerrymandering and that it will be used to advance the political aspirations of the Queen’s palace guard, Councillors Galbraith and Nisan.
Right on Stephen, the last time we delegated we got through our delegation without any interruptions from Chair Meed Ward that meant according to her pre-delegations speech that we met the rules. The Mayor with video rolling then ordered our microphone shut off and publicly announced there was zero truth in what we presented.
Not one member of Council raised what was clearly a point of order showing their public support of her statement and her behaviour as Chair.
We asked for an apology but instead got excuses for her behaviour she believes justified her actions.
“Treat others as you would like to be treated”. A principle known as the Golden Rule.
This is a common ethical rule that our mayor seems to have not learned or has forgotten.
In other words “respect is a two-way street”, which at times seems to be clearly lacking at City of Burlington Council Meetings.
The “Love My Neighbourhood” program Eric cited is just one in a long litany of silly, wasteful initiatives the City continues to support. Describing the program isn’t what was asked. The question is: why pay three people to dole out money for something as frivolous and unnecessary as neighbourhood parties that offers marginal value and limited utility?
The overriding issue that remains unanswered is this: at all six pre-consultation meetings, and later during city hall delegations, there were multiple ideas, suggestions and improvements generated by various citizens, and not just BRAG. Why is it that not one single citizen proposal has been acted upon, endorsed or adopted? After all, isn’t the whole idea of engagement about providing a forum through which ideas, recommendations and proposals can be explored, examined and adopted? In the city’s response to BRAG why isn’t there a single response that reads “We will investigate this matter and explore the feasibility of adopting it in future”? Do you mean to tell me that not one single idea proposed is deserving of further consideration?
The answer to the last question lies somewhere on a continuum between “The city doesn’t give a s#*t what BRAG or anyone else thinks or says” vs. “Consultation and engagement is just a “tick the box” exercise”.
Councillor Kearns asked me during my November 4th delegation why more people weren’t showing up to delegate or voice concerns about the budget. She and her Council colleagues might want to look in the mirror sometime because the reason for the apathy problem is staring them right in the face.