By Pepper Parr

August 20th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

When the Premier tried to download the costs of a number of services onto the municipalities some time ago, there was an uproar – they had already set their budgets and their tax rates – wasn’t possible to change at that point.

The Ford government relented; everyone knew they would be introducing the plans again – and they did – yesterday at the AMO conference taking place in Ottawa.

Child-care and health-care advocates are slamming the provincial government’s plan to go ahead with some of its controversial municipal funding cuts next year.

Despite some extra time before funding is slashed, the news was not welcome.

The cuts are real and they create “uncertainty, stress for families and sort of chaos at the municipal level across the province as they try to scramble to figure out what’s happening.”

Premier Doug Ford addressing the municipal sector on Monday.

Ford said some of this year’s planned cuts — to public health, child care and land ambulance funding — will take effect Jan. 1.

“We recognize our government moved quickly when we came into office to address our inherited challenges. But we’ve listened to you.”

Moody’s, the bond rating service, said the cuts will blow $2-billion hole in municipal budgets which will raise the cost of borrowing. Halton Regional Carr might not be able to brag about having the great credit rating the Region has had for more than a decade.

Prior to the changes announced by the Ford government last spring, municipalities had varying public health cost-sharing arrangements with the province — with Ontario paying 100 per cent or 75 per cent in some cases.
The new plan will see all municipalities pay 30 per cent of public health care costs.

The chair of Toronto’s board of health, said “officials are trying to figure out what the full financial impact of the cuts will be — but he was adamant that the cuts would amount to tens of millions of dollars annually for the city.”

Aerial view of the Regional offices located in Oakville.

Commissioners at the Region will be running their numbers when they get back to their offices – it is not going to be a pretty picture.

“As is too often the case with this provincial government, they make announcements first and provide details later.”

Starting on Jan. 1, municipalities will also have to pay 20 per cent of the cost of creating new child-care spaces, which the province previously fully funded.

Some cuts to funding for administrative child-care costs are being delayed until 2021 and others are being delayed to 2022.

Ford also said land ambulance funding will increase by four per cent.

The province is dealing with an $11 billion deficit, the highest sovereign debt of any government.

Just about all the Mayors “recognize and appreciate the challenges the government of Ontario faces in getting its deficit under control”. However, this must be done in a prudent, collaborative manner that does not impact the services that people rely on each and every day.”

A former city of Toronto Councillor said: “Make no mistake, these cuts will hurt people. They are short-sighted and they are wrong.”

Regional Chair and the CAO are going to have to confer with their commissioners to figure out how to deal with the funding cuts announced by the Ford government.

Regional Chair Gary Carr

Regional CAO Jane MacCaskill

For weeks, the premier and his cabinet ministers had defended the cuts as necessary to tackle an urgent financial situation and said municipalities needed to do their part, as the recipients of a large share of provincial dollars. The government is trying to eliminate an $11.7 billion deficit.

AMO president Jamie McGarvey, who introduced Ford at the event Monday, said municipalities understand the province’s goals and urged the government to work with civic leaders.

“We cannot achieve these things with abrupt, unilateral changes and it will take more than simple belt tightening to make things better,” McGarvey said. “Working together, we can avoid unnecessary turmoil, and respect the essential front line-services that our governments deliver.”

The services that are going to be hit by funding cuts are for the most part delivered by the Regional government.

The tax rate that is set by a municipality includes taxes levied by the Region and the Boards of Education.

By Staff

May 28th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

The following Statement was issued by the Mayor of Burlington.

Today I am pleased to acknowledge the Provincial government’s announcement that they will be cancelling the recently announced retroactive in-year cuts to municipalities and maintaining the pre-budget funding levels for public health, child care and ground ambulance.

Ontario’s big-city mayors met in Guelph on Friday (May 24) at a meeting of LUMCO (Large Urban Mayors Caucus of Ontario) along with Mayor John Tory of Toronto, to discuss a joint strategy to respond to the previously announced Provincial budget cuts and downloading on municipalities, after our budgets had already been passed. We were grateful to have the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, The Honourable Steve Clark, also join us for part of that meeting.

He heard our concerns and took our unanimously passed joint statement back to the Premier. The key messages from the mayors meeting as LUMCO were:

• We want to be at the table with the Province to work together to address their fiscal challenges in ways that minimize impacts on our residents.

• If the Province does not change course, or even delay implementation until 2020 so that we can adjust for our next budget cycle, municipalities will be forced to consider tax increases, service cuts, or raiding reserves.

Mayor Marianne Meed Ward with Premier Doug Ford.

On behalf of the City of Burlington, I commend Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Minister Steve Clark for listening to the concerns raised by mayors on behalf of our residents across the province.

The cuts, as originally announced, were poised to hurt local communities and put cities’ finances at risk. They were also made without prior consultation with municipal leaders, leaving no time to plan for what was coming and leaving a collaboration gap between our two levels of government. Today’s news shows what can be accomplished when different levels of government listen to one another and work together.

But we are not out of the woods yet.

The delay in these cuts is helpful, but some of these cuts continue to be inappropriate to download to the municipal tax base. The Province cannot balance its own books on the backs of municipal property taxes, especially when they will negatively impact front-line services. Municipalities only receive 9 cents on every tax dollar collected by our governments. We will only make substantial fiscal progress by ensuring savings are found by the levels of government that spend the most (federal and provincial). We encourage the Province to look at their own administrative efficiencies rather than cutting front line services delivered at the municipal level.

On a related note, the Province has asked municipalities to help find additional savings and efficiencies, recently announcing an “Audit and Accountability Fund” to support line-by-line third-party reviews of their operations.

Mayor Meed Ward advises that “we are not out of the woods yet”.

My fellow LUMCO Mayors and I are fully supportive of balancing our budgets, reviewing all expenditures to look for efficiencies, and supporting the Province in reducing their deficit and debt.

The City of Burlington completed a line-by-line review as part of our 2019 budget process, as we do every year. Unlike the federal and provincial governments, municipalities cannot run a deficit. We must not only balance our books annually, but also share them transparently with our constituents.

As a result of our line-by-line review, our approved 2019 budget saw an initial reduction of $1.15M, with City Council trimming an additional $1.6M while still investing in our infrastructure, local transit, tree planting and community services. The end result was our ability to pass the lowest tax increase at the city level in eight years. We would be more than happy to share our best practices with the Province.

Even with all these savings already found, we are always willing to have an independent review of our books to verify what we already know.

More detail on our commitment to finding efficiencies and managing our budget effectively can be found on my blog at mariannemeedward.ca/finding-municipal-budget-efficiencies.

While we welcome today’s announcement, changes in other pieces of legislation will negatively affect our ability to be financially sustainable and provide for community services. Bill 108 includes proposed changes that would hurt cities’ ability to provide parkland, community facilities and adequate public engagement to inform the planning of our neighborhoods. Changes to Development Charges, paid by developers to offset the cost of growth, could put parkland and community centres in jeopardy. The changes will mean either a reduction in community services or an increase in property tax to cover the shortfall. These changes do nothing to reduce provincial costs but do increase the costs to municipalities at a time we are all trying to find efficiencies.

Additionally, a return to the old OMB (Ontario Municipal Board) rules for planning appeals means that planning matters will once again be taken out of the hands of local municipal councils. There is no evidence to support that these changes would actually increase the supply of affordable housing.

Furthermore, reverting to the old rules will add costs and time to planning approvals and require municipalities to spend more in legal fees defending our planning decisions. Again, these changes do nothing to reduce provincial costs but do increase the costs to municipalities at a time we are all trying to find efficiencies.

Mayor offers to share Burlington budget practices with the province.

We are heartened by the willingness of the Province to listen to municipalities and reverse course, and we look forward to additional conversations on the outstanding matters that have yet to be addressed by today’s announcement that create costs without benefits to municipalities and our residents.

By Pepper Parr

March 1st, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

The shift that has taken place in the way city council works now is almost seismic.

Burlington voted for five new council members in October. Two of the five were the result of former councillors who decided not to run again. The other two were defeated at the polls.

The Mayor lost his chain of office – Marianne Med Ward now wears that symbol of office.

The 2010 to 2018 Council was almost always mean spirited – the Mayor was not able to change the culture of that Council. Meed Ward’s relationship with then ward 1 councillor Rick Craven was close to toxic; Meed Ward often felt her personal safety was at risk. The Gazette didn’t see it that way, however they certainly didn’t get along.

The 2019 city council – seven people quite pleased with themselves – they have every reason to be proud of what they ave done so far.

Ward 5 Councillor Paul Sharman was almost as bad as Rick Craven – they seemed to feed off each other with former Councillor Lancaster following along and former Councillor Dennison, who should have known better, let them get away with it.

Marianne Meed Ward was determined that this was not the way the city council she was to lead would work. She made that abundantly clear during the final meeting of the 2010 – 2018 city Council.

The question was: Could she pull it off?

Too early to be definitive but if what we are seeing so far – it is and will continue to be a much more collegial and effective city council.

Meed Ward gets to laugh from time to time.

When she realizes after hearing what staff and other Councillors have to say that her opinion needs to change – she is direct and forthright – and changes her mind.

She is also challenging staff in a way they have not been challenged for the past ten years. This is really healthy. There is certainly some chatter amongst the Directors as to how she inserts herself into a situation – they will get over it and come to realize that they are fortunate to have a Mayor who will actually lead.

Meed Ward still has some work to do on getting her council members onside. In an important vote related to the Randall Reef work being done in Hamilton, Meed Ward said she wanted her colleagues with her on this one. The motion passed but it was one of those 4-3 votes Burlington used to see every council meeting.

Councillors Lisa Kearns, Paul Sharman and Kelvin Galbraith did not vote with her on the item which had to do with using reserve funds money for a short period of time.

Randall Reef – The second worst environmental waste deposit in the country had to be cleaned up: Burlington paid $2.3 million over ten years.

Randall Reef is a three government level undertaking to bury tonnes of toxic sludge in Hamilton Harbour. Burlington is in for $2.3 million, Hamilton $6 million – the Region and federal government in for the balance.

The most socially liberal spend came from Councillor Sharman who said free transit for people who do not have enough money to live on “is the biggest gift we can give them” put the expense in the base now.

The Region uses a formula that is made up of LICO + 15%. The low income cut-offs (LICOs) are income thresholds below which a family will likely devote a larger share of its income on the necessities of food, shelter and clothing than the average family.

Thus a household with one person will be eligible for the free transit if their income is below $29,139.

The cut off point for larger households is set out below.
1 person 29,139
2 persons 36,276
3 persons 44,597
4 persons 54,147
5 persons 61,412
6 persons 69,262
7 persons or more 77,113

There were some extraordinary decisions made at the Standing Committee meetings this week. They should hold up at the Council meeting at the end of the month.

Related news stories:

Meed Ward – final 2018 Council meeting.

Randall Reef

Salt with Pepper is the musings, reflections and opinions of the publisher of the Burlington Gazette

By Staff

February 21st, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

It looks as if the Interim is still the Interim and not the Acting.

During the Capital Budget Standing Committee meeting today Tim Commisso was addressed as the Interim City Manager. A couple of chuckles were heard from the Staff Section of the council seating.

No one has said anything about how the title “Acting” got attached to Commisso’s name – clerical error perhaps?

The budget meeting went exceptionally well.  The performance put in by Ward 4 Councillor Shawna Stolte on handling two very complex financial issues – Information and Technology and the Fire department, were lengthy but very well done.

The financial requirement for Information Technology was in the millions and brought to light some serious issues that were not known or discussed at anything length at previous budget meetings.

This council is made up of younger people who are not afraid to ask questions and id they aren’t comfortable they ask a follow up question.

Budget Committee Chair Lisa Kearns

Budget Committee Chair Lisa Kearns was able to match the staff member explaining the technology word for word – she has been down that road before. They also managed to take a decent amount of money out of the Capital budget – they are determined to get any tax increase below 3% – given the rate at which they moved today – you can think in terms of something well below that 2.99% Mayor Meed Ward put on the table.

There is a different tone from this council.

By Staff

January 29th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

We now know what the Mayor would like to see in the way of a Budget increase for the city residents.

Staff have put forward a budget that would see an increase of 3.99% over what they were taxed last year.

Mayor Meed Ward thinks that can be chiselled down to 2.99%
The City is inviting residents to share their feedback about the spending priorities in the proposed 2019 city budget at two town hall events in February.

Mayor Goldring did a Town Hall call in on the budget from the Council Chamber – response was dismal.

Telephone Town Hall
On Thursday, Feb. 7 at 7:30 to 8:30 p.m., Mayor Marianne Meed Ward will host a live, call-in telephone town hall where residents can listen in and ask questions about the proposed 2019 budget priorities.

Burlington residential phone numbers will be randomly selected to be part of the telephone town hall. Residents who would like to be added to the telephone call list can email getinvolved@burlington.ca by February 5th.

A Public meeting to review the tax rate was held at Central Arena on Drury Lane. It snowed – the hall was empty but the area next door was packed.

Anyone who does not receive a telephone invitation can call 1-800-837-8058 at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 7 to join the town hall.
Town Hall – Central Arena
On Monday, Feb. 11 at 2 to 3:30 p.m., Mayor Marianne Meed Ward will host an in-person town hall in the auditorium at Central Arena, located at 519 Drury Ln.  Senior city staff will be at both town hall sessions to help answer questions.

Burlingtonians will show up for public meetings and share their views. The location and the way the event is organized is critical. And letting the citizen make changes would help as well.

Delegate
Members of the public can also register to speak to Burlington City Council as a delegation at one of the following Committee of the Whole meetings. Both meetings take place at City Hall in Council Chambers, located at 426 Brant St. on the second floor:

Feb. 4, 2019 at 6:30 p.m. Meeting of Committee of the Whole:
Delegations from the public on capital and operating budgets
Feb. 7, 2019 at 9:30 a.m. Meeting of Committee of the Whole:
Delegations from the public on capital and operating budgets

Marianne Meed |Ward standing before the public moments before she was sworn in.

Mayor Marianne Meed Ward reminds people that “Public engagement is one of the most important things when it comes to city matters, particularly budget. With engagement, residents can not only see exactly where their tax dollars are going, but also understand how they and Burlington will benefit. It also gives us, their elected representatives, a chance to hear their thoughts and ideas on what’s been proposed for the 2019 budget. Whether you want to attend in person or call-in to listen, I would encourage members of the community to ask questions and join the conversation.”

It is what she ran her election on – will people show up?

Quick Facts
• The City of Burlington provides 38 services to its residents.
• maintaining existing service delivery levels
• planning for infrastructure renewal
• enhancements to transit service.
• The proposed operating budget results in a 3.99% increase to the city’s portion of the tax bill, including:
• 1.97% to maintain services
• 1.25% for infrastructure renewal
• 0.77% for service enhancements.

IN 2013 members of Council were given a copy of the budget on a memory stick that they could manipulate – there was still a significant tax increase.

• Burlington’s Open Budget tool provides users with 2019 budget information broken down into easy-to-understand graphs and charts. Explore the tool at Burlington.ca/budget.

By Pepper Parr

January 18th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

Director of Finance Joan Ford does a great job of providing the data ad her department does a good job of collecting the taxes as well. It’s the spending side that is causing the long term financial stress. Ms Ford doesn’t do the spending.

Joan Ford, Director of Finance, has been educating the members of City Council for as long as the Gazette has been reporting in this city.

Her department is, without much doubt, the best run department in the city. Ford either has the information a council member asks for at her finger tips or she gets back to them real fast.

This year the educating of council members is a bigger job for the city treasurer; all but two of the seven are new to matters municipal.

There are just two of the new comers who have solid business experience and a demonstrated ability to work with numbers. The rest are going to have a tough time and will stumble on occasion.

Council has some hard decisions to make – the upside is that this new council is asking hard questions – they want to know if the “nice to haves” are really worth it?

Earlier in the month council asked the Finance department to tell them what would have to be taken out of the proposed budget to get either a 3.25%, or a 3% or a 2% tax increase for 2019.

They also wanted to know what the Impact would be if the 1.25% infrastructure levy were removed for 2019. Staff did respond, it wasn’t a pretty picture. That staff response will appear in another Gazette news report.

During the day long session on Thursday the finance department people set out what the challenges are.

The city created a 25 year Strategic Plan that serves as the reason decisions are made.  Everything is measured against that Strategy.  Along with the four “pillars” the bureaucrats added some additional targets that are more fine tuned.

The Strategic Plan: the guide and foundational document decisions rest on.

The province permits debt up to 25% of assesment; Burlington has set 12% as its debt limit – it has in the past exceeded that for very short periods of time. The reality is- Burlington has significant capacity for additional debt – and if money continues to be cheap it might be an option.

The number that matters is what the city tax bills is going to be – averaging the totals just blurs the picture.

Assessment growth brings gobs of money to the city in the way of development charges. Once a development is completed the city has to take on the maintenance of the streets that were built and providing the services needed. Historically Burlington has seen impressive growth – but the city is now basically built out and for the immediate future there isn’t going to be any tax revenue from the developments in the planning stages. That reduces tax cash flow.

The numbers are in the 000’s The Finance department sets out a business case for a decision. Do we set aside the Infrastructure renewal levy; do we add an additional by law enforcement officer. The financial implications are set out.

The chickens are coming home to roost at the Brant Museum: the refurbished/redesigned site will have to be staffed – there is a pin ball exhibition scheduled. Money for that is going to have to be found. Council will have to decide if they want to act on any of these. There were additional idea from staff that were not even considered by the Budget Leadership Team.

The numbers to the right of the bar graph are millions.

The left pie chart shows what is being collected in the way of taxes and where the tax money is going. The right pie chart shows where Burlington gets the money it needs to keep the doors open

Every 0.5% decrease in city taxes requires $800,000 of budget reductions Translates to $1.76 per $100,000 of assessment ($8.80 / year for a $500,000 home) = 0.21% reduction to the total tax bill

The city Council led by Rick Goldring could not manage to find a way to lower the tax bill. It was always well above inflation. The new council has taken the position that anything above inflation isn’t acceptable – now they have to figure out how to make that happen.

Burlington is the first dark blue bar on the left. The dark blue bar in the centre is the average for the cities surveyed.

The city will know by the end of March how this new city council decides to oversee the financial side of municipal administration.

By Pepper Parr

January 13th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

They now begin to get into the nitty gritty of the job they have been elected to do; deliberations on the budget begin in earnest on Thursday and continue through to March 25th when the Operational budget is scheduled to be approved.  The Capital spending budget is scheduled to be approved on February 25th.

This Thursday council will spend time on an Overview report on both the Capital and Operational budgets.

The broad strokes are for a budget increase of 3.99% over what the citizens were taxed in 2018.

In the report to council the Finance department refers to the base budget, the money that has to be spent just to keep the doors open and the wheels turning – this makes up 1.58% of the 3.99% 0f the budget increase.

Regulatory and contractual obligations amount to 1.03% of the 3.99% increase.

The special hospital levy that was put in place when Burlington was told that it had to come up with a whopping $20 million to pay for part of the hospital rebuild/renovation was to be reduced by $1.7 million this year – that amount is being repurposed to infrastructure renewal.

There is a $2 million infrastructure levy that makes up 1.25% of that 3.99% tax increase.

An additional million is being added to public transit that represents .64% of that 3.99% increase.

There are two business cases that will be debated; additional by-law enforcement officers and additions to the para transit service that amount to $214,000 + which make up .21% of that 3.99% budget increase.

Lisa Kearns will be chairing the budget committee – she has her work cut out for her.

Ward 2 Councillor Lisa Kearns is going to stick handle the budget deliberations.  She has no experience managing a city budget but she has been reading and getting all the help she needs.  Will there be stumbles?  Of course there will be stumbles but Kearns is a quick study and supported by a strong committee clerk.

Some of the city Councillors will struggle to keep up.

This is likely to be a harrowing experience for most of this Council.  Their hearts are in the right place – but their hands are going to slide into your pocket to pay the bills.

The way the Finance department re-purposed the original hospital levy and slid it into the infrastructure account is something that needs a closer look.

The current council didn’t do the dirty on this but the citizens of the city went along with a special tax levy to pay for the hospital rebuild/renovation thinking that when the bills were paid the tax levy would come to an end.

Nope – they are going to keep that tax grab and use it to pay for roads.