By Eric Stern
June 14th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
Just say no to spending.
When it comes to the budgeting process at city hall a good analogy would be to compare the budget to a key lime pie.
Politicians dole out pieces of the pie based on their vision and community needs. Parks need a medium-sized slice, transit needs a big slice. The pie is only so big. You can increase the size of the pie by increasing taxes. In most jurisdictions, sadly not Burlington, making the pie bigger becomes a challenge. People tend not to like tax increases.
In Burlington, our elected politicians have a different approach.
Expanding the pie is easy, the city puts out confusing communications about the tax rate increase, then increases taxes by as much as they ”need”. Mayor Meed Ward has already started filling her social media releases with “information”, using the term loosely, on the 2025 budget.
“Staff are predicting a total tax increase of 5.5%, of which the City’s portion would be 4.5%”
The city finance department’s presentation to the city council on Monday, June 10th, 2024, a scant five days ago, included the numbers the mayor is quoting but also clearly stated the city budget needs to increase by 8.9%.
During the June 10 and 11 “Committee of the Whole” meeting, our council unanimously voted to accept the city’s staff recommendation of an 8.9% increase for 2025.
This council was elected in 2022. Set out below are the increases each year along with the increases as a Cumulative number.
| Time Frame | Increase | Cumulative Increase |
| 2022 – 2023 | 15.57% | 15.59% |
| 2023 – 2024 | 10.21% | 27.39% |
| 2024 – 2025 | 8.9% (proposed) | 38.72% |
If this increase goes through the result will be for every $100 in property taxes you paid in 2022 look forward to paying $138.72 in 2025.
Has the council adopted the motto “never say no” to additional spending? Has this council taken the position that when you need to hand out more money you simply make the pie bigger?
Two recent delegations made it very clear that there is a very unhappy public out there.
But eventually, when you have an economy like this, they start to understand, because they’re on a fixed budget, somebody lost their job, they might be getting older, and all of a sudden, 10.21% resonates. “It’s resonating in Millcroft. Let me tell you, it’s resonating in 14 holes. It’s resonating at pickleball. I’m coming here today, and I guess I timed it right, because I had some time and the budget was on the agenda today.
The end result was that the 10.2% increase remained the same despite the cost savings motions that were passed. It was clear to me that there was absolutely no intent in trying to reduce resident’s property taxes despite the public outcry for prudence.
Council operates in a vacuum. People who want something attend council meetings and delegate. Much of what our councillors see is a constant stream of people coming to meetings holding out tin cups.
Policies are in place to make it easier to say no, for example, the Community Development Fund and its fee waiver policy.
This policy states one-time multi-year (up to 3 years) funding is available for non-profits. Another policy for charities allows them to claim back 40% of their property taxes (annually).
Some examples from 2024 delegations.
Burlington Green, a registered charity, received $62,000 for yet-to-be-defined work that Burlington Green will perform for the city. This funding has been built into the city budget and is now an annual expense.
Team Burlington, a non-profit, funded by for-profit businesses, received a 20% rent reduction. Team Burlington consists of The Burlington Chamber of Commerce, the Burlington Downtown Business Association, Tourism Burlington and the Economic Development Corporation. This rent reduction, if approved, will be built into the budget and become an annual expense. Team Burlington’s financial statements have been published in the Gazette. The limited publicly available information makes it impossible to determine where the Chamber spends its money, why the Chamber needs assistance, or why our council agreed to assist.
Is it time for the city council to stop building spending commitments into the budget and start saying no?
Recent delegations:
Repeat Comment for effect: Let’s remember one thing, words like, pillars, vision to focus, key performance measures, citizen engagement, awesome, updates, scorecards, community elements, budget variance, summary deck, revenue by source, KPI’s blah, blah, blah, will not stop a left of centre council from profligate spending and will not prevent a double-digit (between 10% and 99%) increase repeat in 2024-2025.
Monthly or quarterly reporting of a budget that increased by 10.21% will make you feel even worse . If you have ever played whack-a-mole, you will get the picture.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=whack+a+mole+game+youtube&atb=v404-1&iax=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DAJFSuY9HBTE&ia=videoshahttps://duckduckgo.com/?q=whack+a+mole+game+youtube&atb=v404-1&iax=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DAJFSuY9HBTE&ia=videoshnme
I’m glad to see that Mr. Stern used the correct approach in calculating the cumulative tax increase over the 3 year period. In the past many commentators (including the publisher (FOR WHICH WE APOLOGIZE Nick)) have just added together the annual percentage increases for each of the years tup with the total percentage increase over the period. This ignores the fact that the second year’s increase is calculated with reference to the increase in the first year and so on in the third year i.e. rates are compounded.
Another example of how the City plays games with the municipal tax regime is with reference to special tax levies imposed for only a specific period of time. Examples are the special levy for Joseph Brant hospital and the GTA levy which was paid to Toronto to offset their burden of assisting the homeless who came to Toronto from other parts of the GTA. In each case when these special levies expired, the City just rolled the special levy into to general tax levy going forward creating a camouflaged tax increase which the average Burlington resident was unlikely to notice.
Editor’s note: What is amazing about this comment is who it comes from. That Nicholas Leblovic would have anything, anything negative to say about Mayor Meed Ward is a bit of a stunner.
Agree with you Editor, why did he not kick off when the JBH levy got rolled right in to the budget, Many of us objected limproper but it made no difference.
Thank you again Eric for simplifying what the Mayor is supposedly trying to tell taxpayers. Your 2025 tax increase shown as 8.9% proposed along with the cumulative (or compounded as some also call it) increase would bring the increase over three years to 38.72%. A large increase in a short space of time.
Now let’s assume the 8.9% increase occurs for 2025. Next, let’s use a round number increase of say 8% for 2026. The new compound increase over four years would be 1.3872 X 1.08 = 1.4982 for a 49.82% cumulative increase. Let’s call it 50%.
How many of us can hope to have a 50% increase in our income over the past four years in 2026. That’s what we would need just to stay in place if all of our expenses went up 50% during that period. It just seems outrageous to think that part of our expenses (city taxes) might just rise that much over just four years.
We are somewhat lucky in Burlington that the Region of Halton has much lower tax increases and the Education funding has been 0% for many years because the provincial government has underfunded education ever since taking power. That has served to lower the end result of our blended tax payments (the one the Mayor loves to use in the media). What if the Region raises their tax take and the province finally decides that our education system deserves to have more resources for our kids that have been held back for years? The City is currently the spendthrift of the three. If all three become spendthrifts then we are really in trouble. It could happen.
Nice to have just doesn’t cut it anymore in our City. It’s got to change to need to have.
Bang~on Eric ! We have to stop this runaway spending culture.
They obviously didn’t hear you last year,Eric, or anyone else for that matter. It could not have been more clearly stated – no more more is no more.
Nobody else, even statistically half the sample, was heard either, showing that even all that City voice doesn’t matter to Council – no accountability in this bunch cause the Strong Mayor likes to spend, and the rest go along, particular right after a failed coup, in which Galbraith joined forces with the Mayor on last vote to become Deputy Mayor.
The thing I really don’t like personally about or object to about Eric’s lime-pie idea is the myth that it can always be made larger for our very own purposes, but that’s totally wrong. Doug Ford and the Province are downloading their development and Growth Plan on us and also some on the Region, that we then have to pay, so we have some pie making capacity that is basically taxed away by Ford and he gets the pie and gives it away to developer friends and who knows.
We need all the Mayors, and the Region, the account for this. providing the truth.
And as well, we want to know how the OLT ramps up fees and costs, particularly for the recent Millcroft debacle ripoff for millions, but still with conditions that have not been yet . Existing residents lost some of the existing value of their properties taken effectively by OLT with no voice of their own. They also had to pay but we don’t how much – 16 day Hearing won’t be cheap I think.
The developers effectively accrued this value and when built selling will be embodied in the new builds -2400 – 5000 – square feet, AFFORDORABLE HOUSING, DESPERATELY NEEDED AND IN A CRISIS. but only because of OLT, and that the development would not have been possible without the existence of the golf course in the first place.
What a bunch of Ford crap enabled by OLT developer expert witnesses reciting their lines about this travesty looking like “good planning”.
Get wise folks, they say whatever the boss wants.
These Annual expenses put forward by our Burlington City Council are wrong and not acceptable. Residents should not be on the hook to have these expenses added to their Property Tax Bills every year indefinitely. COB needs to stop this now. And refrain from any additional asks in the future.
Long past time. This Mayor and Council need to be voted out.
Sadly, politicians of all stripes have abdicated fiscal responsibility.
They just aren’t serious about our money.
Right Jim, what s sad is public have just started to notice what many have even saying since at least 2018.
Well said Eric! Leopards don’t change their spots and Queens (particularly red ones) don’t bow to the rabble.
So, the CofC is almost broke (amongst some very questionable spending) and
has a membership that does not speak well of new and emerging businesses in
Burlington, the Sound of Music needs a loan, the Performing Arts Centre is
running in the red with odd happenings at the Board level and new
manufacturing and IT businesses are not selecting Burlington as a preferred
location. Does this all speak to a vibrant and expanding economy or does it expose a civic leadership that is indulgently self-serving? Honestly, waiting for 2026 to deal with this institutionalized incompetence seems just too little too late while focusing on single issues like property tax reform, no matter how compelling, is just isolating a small portion of the problem. But I agree, if anything motivates a generally apathetic electorate, it’s wallet issues.
Good faith, insightful delegations to Council (such as those by Lydia Thomas and Doreen Sebben) mask a broken and totally cynical engagement process. They seem to offer hope where I believe there is actually none and foster the illusion that there is a realistic chance to work with the existing Council. But this Council is beyond repair – it should have no future beyond 2026. Most of its members realize that defending the record of the last few years will be difficult. Many will run to ground or take other positions at the public trough. However, we need to protect against this Council reappearing in yet another form – different names and faces but the same old games played. We need open government structural reforms, a properly informed and engaged electorate and a recognized need for change. We need honest electoral remodelling so that the almost insurmountable advantages of an incumbent are minimized. We need change and a great deal of it.
You are right in terms of reproducing this council in 2026. It could very easily happen with an anything but approach. We need better Ministry support in dealing with these very serious issues that have seen public shut out of how our money is spent.