By Pepper Parr
November 26th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
Why do the CAO and Treasurer consistently use a budget number that isn’t defined; isn’t valid and confuses taxpayers?
For reasons I have never been able to understand, both Staff and members of Council have difficulty saying exactly how much tax rates are going up or down. Down is not something that we will see in Burlington this year.
One can understand the reluctance on the part of those elected to office – the last thing they want to do is upset the voters. Photo ops and good news keeps them in office.
But Staff are a different matter – these men and women earn excellent salaries and are described as professionals with standards they are expected to meet day in and day out.
So why then the following from Craig Millar, the new Chief Financial Officer, who came to us from Barrie.
Crag Millar: Chief Financial Officer for the City of Burlington.
At a recent Council meeting, he said: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to give an update, as we have identified in the staff report that’s on the agenda today. Recall, as some disputants called out, the budget as originally proposed was 7.5% – that figure included assessments that were going to be added in the months ahead.
A fuzzy number that has yet to be defined. We do know that it is not the rate at which your taxes are going to be set.
Up to this point, Millar was doing his job – but then he added: “the impact on the city of Burlington residents’ tax bill was 3.79% and then the blended rate, which includes Halton Region and education, we were at 4.97% so subsequent to the publication of our Budget material, Halton Region informed Halton council that the police budget has come in higher than what was initially projected, and currently, at this point, the region is forecasting their budget is going to increase from the original assessment of 3.6% increase to 6% so the impact of that to the city of Burlington taxpayer is now our budget has gone from impact is going from 4.97% to 5.76% – that translates into an increase of $52.88 per 100,000 of current value assessment. Initially, we had a number of $45; it’s my understanding that the Region is releasing their budget material on November 22 and that council will be deliberating, I believe, in early December. So again, just to reiterate, the currently all in number, the impact to the taxpayer is at 5.76%”
Why wouldn’t someone take their eyes off the monitor secure in the knowledge that the tax increase was going to be 5.76? over last year.
Those numbers are so misleading. An average property owner would have a fuzzy understanding of what the “current value assessment” of their property is and how that assessment is arrived at.
With the numbers 3.79% – which is the blended followed by a statement that says: “The impact of that to the city of Burlington taxpayer is how our budget has gone from 4.97% to 5.76%
It would be easy to arrive at the conclusion that the taxes are going to be somewhere between 5.76% and 4.97%
The word that slips by is “impact” – just what do they mean by impact? They never do define the word.
The truth is that Burlington’s taxes for Burlington residents are going to rise by 7.51%% or more this year over last year. And that taxes rose by 10.21 % in 2024 and by 15.59% in 2023. Those increases are cumulative and add up to a 37.63% increase since the last election.
We know three things:
1 – the budget will increase by 8.3%.
2 – new assessment, tax money from brand new homes and condos, that are now on the list of properties that are taxed by the city, will pay for .79% of the budget increase.
3 – Property taxes will pay for the rest of the increase and will go up 7.51%
That’s all we know.
Bandying about that 4.97% number is deliberately misleading and both disingenuous and dishonest.
Bad enough that Craig Millar is using a number that has no real meaning to a taxpayer, but he has gotten into the habit of saying it just the way the council members d0 – but they have rear ends to cover.
Heck, he just got here – did he have to drink the Kool-Aid before he had 90 days in as the Treasurer?
Taxes were not always as high as they have been in the past few years. The chart to the right sets out what Burlington had become used to.
The CAO Hassan Basit is no better.
CAO Hassaan Basit – Failing to come clean.
When he was the President at Conservation Halton he did a superb job – first of all he changed what was an organization that wasn’t performing into one that actually served the people of the Region.
He realized early that the Authority had a revenue problem – and before hiking prices, he went to the community and asked how much more would they be prepared to pay for things like parking and attending the really well run events at Conservation Halton.
For some reason Hassan left all those well-developed and honed skills on the desk he used while at the Britannia Road office. That open, very direct approach with the public that he used when he served as President of Conservation Halton doesn’t look like it is going to be brought to bear in Burlington – where it is very badly needed.
Hassaan is hiring a lot of people – he has given sound business cases for most of them – I’m challenged to point to one and argue that his business case doesn’t hold water.
Two of the positions – the need for someone qualified to get a grip on the city web site and turn it into service that meets a public need is one, the other, a Director of Strategic Initiatives, someone to oversee those areas where projects overlap and at the same time rely on data that comes from different departments in the city.
It is a challenging job that Hassaan Basit is enjoying.
Failing to come clean with the public on just how much they are going to be taxed isn’t helping and is certainly doing nothing to improve the level of engagement that is going to be needed as the city grows.
This is the first Budget for CAO Basit and CFO Millar – hopefully, they will do a better job of explaining what they are doing and educating a public that is not fully informed and as a result not able to engage.
The public know full well that our councillors and Mayor are planning on spending 7.5% more of our money than they did last budget. Trying to create a smoke screen on spending by using a blended number is despicable. The Director of Spin is behind the communication strategy that is not working. Time to picket city hall carrying 7.5% signs, that message, they might understand.
Do you feel that the CFO and CAO are being given instructions to keep the public in the dark by the councillor who is the “Mayor” of financial matters .
Burlington City Council needs to get rid of the “Strong Mayor Powers” in order to have the CAO, Hassaan Basit and the CFO, Craig Millar perform their respective jobs the way they should be performed for the residents of Burlington. Then, and only then will things change at the City of Burlington.