Council zips through a necessary meeting in 8 minutes so that tax bills, due June 21st, can be mailed today

By Pepper Parr

May 4th, 2023

BURLINGTON, ON

The item on the Agenda was time sensitive and needed to be ratified before the scheduled meeting on May 16.

The one item from the Corporate Services Strategy Risk and Accountability meeting of May 3; the 2023 Tax Levy Bylaw. The motion is to approve the bylaw for which there has to be a recorded vote.

Mayor asks if there are any questions of Staff.

Councillor Kearns: Why am I here?

Councillor Kearns: I recognize that we’re in a pre scheduled special meeting of Council. I’m just wondering from staff, is there anything that could have been done to ratify this within a regular Council cycle ?

I’m curious why we’re here today.

City treasurer Joan Ford

Joan Ford, Chief Financial Officer responds.

We do need to get this ratified by council so that we can prepare the tax bills and send them out by the end of the month for a June 21 due date, September. 21st due date.

The reason we weren’t able to make the April council meeting is we needed to wait until the region ratified there tax levy. That was done mid April.

Mayor turns it to the clerk for the recorded vote. Everyone votes for the motion

Mayor adjourns the Special Council meeting which lasted a mere 8 minutes – the tax bills can be printed and get mailed to you sooner than you think.

The City of Burlington collects property taxes for the city, Halton Region, and the Halton district school boards. The total combined tax levy for all three organizations is approximately $486.1 million. The city’s levy is $219.2 million. The city collects $150.1 million on behalf of Halton Region and $116.8 million on behalf of the Halton district school boards. The taxes levied for Halton Region and the Halton district school boards are sent to them.

All this happened because Lisa Kearns was there.