By Jim Portside
July 23rd, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
The July 23, 2025, edition of the Hamilton Spectator contained the following Letter to the Editor from Rory Nisan.
I had to read it twice to understand the letter. Nisan, as a Burlington City Councillor, is an insider. I’ve added some comments – in italics – to help outsiders understand this letter.
Ward 3 Councillor Rory Nisan; lives in ward 2
Oped missed budget realities
Re: Another big Burlington tax hike?
In her recent oped, Joan Little flexed her creative writing muscles, fantasizing about an election a year away. As a result, she missed some important dialogue on next year’s budget.
The next municipal election will take place on October 26, 2026.
First, I brought a motion to ensure the budget increase is included with the target overall tax rate, so residents have all the numbers.
The city, based on the recommendations of the full-time staffers at City Hall, is planning to increase the city budget by 5.8%. Inflation is under 2%. In dollar terms, a 5.8% increase equates to an addition $15 million being transferred from taxpayers’ pockets to city coffers.
When Burlington’s increase is watered down by a much lower increase from the Region of Halton and no increase in education taxes, the total tax bill increase will be 4.4%.
The press release from the City of Burlington states: “the City of Burlington share of taxes being less than 3 per cent.”
Nisan’s motion falls far short of what is required. A motion is required to end staff and council’s practice of talking about the overall impact of the Burlington tax hike. There are only two numbers that are important: the budget increase and the overall tax bill increase.
This year’s talking point number of 2.98%, or less than 3%, is as meaningless as statements about the impact of the increase. A 5.8% budget increase is just that, a 5.8% budget increase. Council needs to own this number and justify it to the taxpayers, not play a shell game to pretend the increase is 2.98%
Second, council endorsed a mayoral budget direction that provided a target tax increase. I did not support providing the target tax increase because I want to see what staff can do to find efficiencies and provide affordability measures before raising taxes by the target of 4.5 per cent.
In Burlington, the civil service decides how much more money they need in terms of a budget increase and council rubber stamps the increase. Where is the input from your constituents? City surveys, petitions, and delegations are all ignored. As our representative, it is your job to decide what the community should reasonably pay as a tax increase and the staff’s job to work within that limit. Without council imposing a limit, staff will not find efficiencies.
Finally, the budget will include an increased appropriation to fund a compensation increase only for senior councillors. I do not support this compensation increase, which was approved earlier this year. I believe this additional compensation is unnecessary and not a good use of residents’ tax dollars.
Ward 6 Councillor Angelo Bentivegna
Ward 5 Councillor Paul Sharman
The term senior councillor is being used to refer to Councillor Bentivegna and Councillor Sharman, who are both in their seventies. All councillors receive the same base pay. Senior councillors were receiving less in benefits as the city did not have to contribute to their pension plan. I agree with Councillor Nisan on this one, but the amount of money involved is minuscule. With a 5.8% Burlington only tax increase, the city will have $15,000,000 more to spend in 2026 compared to 2025.
Read more about the pension dilemma our senior councillors face here:
https://burlingtongazette.ca/the-inflation-protected-defined-benefit-pension-plan-lives-on-in-a-sector-where-competition-and-bankruptcy-dont-exist/
To have a strong fiscal foundation, Burlington needs to begin finding new sources of revenue to fund our needs and focus on building our local economy. That will pay dividends in the long run.
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It seems Joan Little can’t write in her own articles anything critical of the city without the mayor and now Nisan writing a letter to complain and add their spin. Much eye rolling by Burlington residents when we read this stuff.
Nisan also demanded an apology recently from a regional councillor at a Halton Region council meeting for making comments he didn’t like. He also said he would be going to the integrity commissioner “if this behaviour continued.” Such arrogance!
There was no apology. Councillor Malboeuf responded with the following, which I think applies very well to our mayor and most of our council: “There’s a saying when you don’t like the message and you can’t dispute the message; the strategy is to attack the messenger. Well, I’m not going to be intimidated,” said Malboeuf.