By Joseph A. Gaetan
June 3rd, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
Joe has an opinion and an interpretation of some facts that he wants to share.
Regarding: “Residents wonder why tax bills appear more than the 6.58 per cent
increase reported, City of Burlington encourages residents to compare 2023 to 2024 tax
bills
The article in Burlington Today, published May 31,2024, states, “Some Burlington
residents are questioning their tax bills and wondering why it appears they’re paying 10
per cent more than last year.”
I can’t speak for other taxpayers in Burlington, but I am not one of the people
“wondering” about my tax bill.
However I am “questioning” why Burlington Council increased their portion of my tax Bill by 10.21%.
For those who are “wondering” how taxes are assessed, this information can be found by visiting the province of Ontario website, where they will find:
“Property tax is a levy based on the assessed value of property.
Property tax has two components: a municipal portion and an education portion.
• The rates for the municipal portion of the tax are established by each
municipality.
o In a two-tiered municipality, a component of the rate is set by the uppertier
and a component is set by the lower-tier municipality.
• The rates for the education portion of the tax are established by the Minister of
Finance and help to fund the elementary and secondary education system in
Ontario. Education tax rates are set in Ontario Regulation 400/98 under the
Education Act.
Comparing my 2023 to 2024 Final Bills here is what I found:
The total increase in my tax bill year over year was $383.93.
1. The Burlington portion of that increase was $291.28, or 75.87% of the increase.
2. The increase passed on by the Region was $36.98 or 9.63% of the increase.
3. The increase by the Police was $55.67 or $14.50% of the increase.
4. There was no increase in the Education levy in 2024.
Lori Jivan, City of Burlington manager budgets and policies
According to the article, “Lori Jivan, City of Burlington manager budgets and policies said the overall tax increase in 2024 is 6.58 per cent”. While this is factually correct, what we as citizens of Burlington should be concerned about is how Council are spending our money. They and they alone had the ability to, not increase our tax bill, increased it slightly, or increased it a lot.
In a year where many people are suffering Council increased the portion they have control over of by 10.21%.
According to StatsCan “The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 3.9% on an annual average basis in 2023”.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240116/dq240116b-eng.htm
All things being equal one would understand Council coming forward with a budget somewhere in the area of 4% or greater but not 10.21% greater. Many people delegated on the budget and thought that 10.21% was over the top.
Time will tell, but the early signals coming from Council indicate them doing a repeat for
the 2025 budget cycle.
For those who are interested in conducting their own analysis I have included a copy of
my spreadsheet.
Joe Gaetan spent 13 of his fifty years of uninterrupted employment as a small business owner. He operated a Laser Smoking Cessation business, treating over 5,000 during the the life of the business. He retired from that business in 2013. Prior to that he worked for a Fortune 100 company.
I have been working for more than 30 years trying to figure out how for the big matters of finance, taxes, development, development charges, city council decision-making, transparency, accountability, truth, and trust at City Hall, get figured out along the process way, not just when I’m told.
So I can really appreciate`how these people, and most of us, feel about this.
I have done many of the engagement kinds of of City matters that I have been invited to or applied to, by City Council.The main thing I have learned is that really none of the politicians have ever give a rat’s ass about what I think, or whatever thoughtful analysis I offer. In fact, this lack of care becomes evident after a time when they fatigue from faking that they are listening, and admit they do not want to hear my views and more, and most of them really want me to go away.
if I don’t volunteer, they do have the power to make me. My Councilor Galbraith just told me in December of 2023, one sentence, with no reason, that I will receive no further communication from his office. Obviously he did not want to hear my views. I asked the the Mayor if this power was allowed, and she gave me a long narrative saying it was okay for him to do this, and actually told me how to be my own Councilor. She also told me I knew how to I could complain but didn’t tell me who to.
I had already learned that the Mayor is in charge of the Integrity Commissioner and can tell them what to do, which I had already experienced her doing just this. Now the Mayor is Strong, and in charge of everything. She sold out to Doug Ford.
The Councilor Galbraith is also allowed by the Mayor and IC to publicly interfere in his own conflicts at the IC. At present he is the Deputy Mayor. Other Councilors are also allowed by the Mayor to interfere publicly, and have done so.
None of them have ever wanted people to stick around over the long run. The problem is that our politicians pretty much do what they want, especially regarding the big matters around finance, taxes, development and relations with the province. They do what they want and only fake to care what we think.
They are not the least accountable, and don’t care because they know that they are not accountable, and regularly flaunt the Codes of Conduct and laws and procedural rules that really only pretend to enforce transparency accountability. Again to say, the Mayor controls the Integrity Commissioner, and weighing in, the rest of Council just goes along with it
Most people can’t take being disrespected over and over, and pretty much rightly conclude that – what’s the point of taking the crap?
The point is you can’t get most people to pay attention continually all the time when treated this way.
I don’t know how to fix that for sure. but the only thing I can suggest that everyone callout every Councilor, in every way we can.
Stop taking the crap by being mute.
Don’t believe any of them without confirmation. You can be sure that all this crap is going to go on and on – just watch.
We really.appreciate those who have the expertise to present the truth about not only the Strong Mayor budget but also the previous budget that is clearly misinformation contrary to legislated transparency requirements.
Thank you Gary for commenting on the Civic Square issues, it has been a very lonely battle to have any taxpayers understand how serious an issue it is when without any appropriate reason, except their personal feelings that the design was underwhelming, the 2018 – 2022 council set aside the previous democratically elected council’s budget decision to put right significant safety and disability related legislated access issues with Civic Square. And there is lots more that we have been stopped bringing attention to.
Neither the Council nor past administration have been willing to accept without a reconsideration motion at the appropriate time they cannot do that. Neither could they use provincial rural funding for urban downtown projects. But they did and thus far the main stream media continues to support the city wrongdoing by their silence CHCH, The Spec, The Burlington Post for example.
We don’t even have the ability to have the Integrity Commissioner do their job as per our Code of Good Governance that is almost two years past its Review Date and not a peep out of our Head of Legal who along with our Mayor and past Clerk found this a perfectly satisfactory state of affairs.
We took our eyes off the ball trusted those we ought to be able to trust. LETS MAKE SURE we do not let these issues go. Delegate, delegate, delegate hold their feet to the fire until they start only making decisions that are backed by legislation. Most important tell our new CAO our expectations of a return to an appropriately budgetted Civic Square not one based on feelings of being underwhelmed!!!
While I’ve taken issue with many of the decisions the City has made over the years I always, until recently, thought they had their financial house in order.
The last two increases, the lack of transparency and candour on what the actual tax rate increase was, the inability of this Council to find significant operational cost savings, and the reckless spending on silly “vanity” projects (e.g. Love Thy Neighbour; art exhibits; Bateman; unnecessary sidewalks on seldom used streets; multiple speed bumps on residential streets; excessive signage; etc.), has left me aghast.
The Ontario NDP government in the 1990’s had to implement “Rae Days” as part of a cost containment program. Maybe we should advocate for “Meed Ward Days”. Any tax increase over 2% comes out of municipal staff reductions with public servant and Councillors forfeiting part of their salaries through unpaid work days. That might be a creative way of curtailing this Council’s profligacy.
Left me aghast says how it is Srephen and learning at the same time our Code of Good Governance complaint system does not work is what is known as A double whammy. What a Legacy!!!
Great article Joe and I agree our City Council needs to stop spending period!
There are so many unnecessary multi million dollar projects this Council have approved and have built or are building at the residents expense. Too many to mention. Residents have now become “the Bank of Burlington” at the whim of our Burlington City Council.
This is a partial list: Bateman $100 million + (and Track removed), most of the square footage at Bateman will be used by Brock University and not by Burlington residents; Skyway Arena $35+ million; numerous Art Projects (one art project paying $170,000 for one art piece); City Hall renovations, huge cost; Prospect Street Bike Pathway over $25+ million for the City portion and balance from the Region, but all from the same taxpayer; Civic Square Renovations, how much has our City Council already spent for Architects and or Landscape Architects, consultations etc.; renovations and rebuilds of multiple Parks across the City when not needed or necessary; numerous Grants for various things, i.e. Neighbourhood parties, and retro grants etc.
Also, we pay for our Councils excessive use of paid consultants.
More often then not, we find out about these massive projects and expeditures after the fact, and not before. Transparency and Citizen Engagement in Burlington is a after thought!
Just STOP this spending!!
I think citizens of Burlington should also be extremely concerned about what our Mayor, council and City tell the public – over and over again – vs. what they should be telling us. When they continue to claim the tax increase is significantly less than it actually is, I would call that misinformation.
The city of Burlington tax increase from 2023 to 2024 was 10.21%. It “appears that way” because that is the actual number. Yes, we are “wondering why” since the City told us repeatedly – for months – that it was 7%. Eric Stern pointed this out back in October 23 in his delegation, asking why the Mayor and the City were writing all over their social media and doing interviews stating that the tax rate was significantly less than what it was: 10.21%. Delegates bluntly stated that using terms like “tax impact” are misleading at best. Eric and others have continued to post the true number, and I think it’s because they kept hammering the point home that the City is now (in very few places) admitting for the first time that it’s actually 10.21%. Also I expect many taxpayers opened their final tax bills in late May, did the math and said “HUH???”
Gary explains well the actual numbers that our taxes have increased. But the overspending and overtaxing is only one of the big problems we have here. People need to frankly wake up to the fact that we are continually being given information that is misleading, confusing – not only on the budget and tax increases. This seems to me to be a recurring theme. And all the while they tout their supposed “transparency.”
And compounding that, we have the fact that the media like “Burlington Today”, “Inside Halton” and the various places where the Mayor loves to be interviewed seem to just take what comes out of the City without questioning, while the Mayor uses her own website and social media – I’ve lost count on how many channels she now uses – (sans comments) to tell the public only what she wants them to know.
This isn’t democracy, folks.
Well said Gary – I’m glad that you made very obvious what the actual quantum of the tax trajectory is.
As important as is this tax issue, even more perhaps is how we receive our ‘news of the day’. I contend with little sense of exaggeration that our local news is almost as “manufactured” as if we were in a totalitarian state; note that I don’t say “dictatorship” – I leave that term to the singular use of Meed Ward. BTW, the City’s Integrity Commissioner, the IC, found nothing wrong in the fact that the Mayor characterized a citizen petition respectfully requesting the repatriation of Strong Mayor powers, as fomenting the threat of “dictatorship”. Apparently, any hyperbole that is used by our Mayor can simply be written off and excused as a “figure of speech”. But to the point, our media in Burlington/Hamilton is essentially just a conduit for the carefully scripted messages of our local politicians. Combined with the absolute barrage of nuanced social media posts (FaceBook, X, Threads, Instagram, Linkedn etc., etc.) and the carefully manipulated/restricted commenting structures, the news that most citizens receive is “sanitized”. We live in a COB echo chamber, a closed environment that provides consistent, positive messaging. The City spin around the tax increase is just one case in point.
Now, I don’t believe that independent media such as the Burlington Gazette or the BayObserver are the epitome of incisive journalism … but dammit, they’re all we have today that can offer a relatively honest assessment. Thank you, Pepper and John! Unfortunately, neither paper has the resources to continue indefinitely, and their voices may be silenced perhaps sooner than they should be.
Overall, it is a very nasty business and it is not far off the unprincipled and thoughtless diatribes popular south of the border. We seem to learn well here – and some of us didn’t have that much to learn.
It seems that our democracy has gone to the birds. Mayers and councillars are elected by the people and payed by the taxpayers of Burlington. Their loyalty must go to the people who pays them. Welcome to Russia systems. Dittatura. Poor Canada people?
Note: In english “dittatura” means dictatorship.
Yes Joe, this Council has a lot to answer for in spending. The 10.21% increase for Burlington taxpayers in 2024 followed an over 15% increase in 2023 taxes compared to 2022. As both Eric Stern and Lydia Thomas have delegated on, this is an over 27% compounded increase over two taxation years.
And Council is predicting they’ll add further increases to what we’ve already been saddled with so that by the next two years of increases we’ll likely have a compounded increase of over 50% in just four taxation years!
Don’t you wish we could get the $4 million back into the Hydro Reserve that this Council spent on the LaSalle Park Marina wave break for a few hundred boaters?
There is still time to tone down the City Hall Square redo project into a needed repair of the bricks and making it disability-friendly rather than an overdone vanity project that will balloon the cost.
It’s not just the federal and Ontario governments on a spending spree. It filters all the way down to our City following this dangerous trend. Citizens need to speak out to every level of government in Canada.