By Staff
November 22nd, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
A Special Meeting of Council has been called by the Mayor to Review the Mayor’s Proposed 2025 Budget.
And that is about all the city can do at this point.
The Regional Budget has been discussed and debated but not yet approved That won’t happen until December 4th at the earliest.
How many of the 7 will seek re-election? Which of the six will choose to run for Mayor? And will Councillor Stolte stick to her two-term campaign promise?
In the past the Regional Budget hasn’t had that big an impact – however this year, the Police Services Budget came in with an ask of an increase of more than 13% over last year.
A long three-hour meeting earlier in the week had Regional Police Chief Tanner taking the Regional Council through where that amount of money was needed.
Regional Police Chief Steve Tanner was kept on his feet for three hours defending his budget.
The changing times have created significant new demands on the Police Services. The Region prides itself on just how safe Halton is – that’s what draws people and jobs to Halton.
But a recent situation where a home was burst into a 2:00 am and the keys to a high end car were grabbed and the car stolen has damaged the perception that this is a safe place to live.
To maintain that image – more police and police cars are needed –and they all cost money.
It is not clear yet just how big an impact the police budget ask is going to have on the Regional budget.
That will become clearer as we get into December.
For Monday – expect delegations from residents that want to see tax cuts – which this Council has had dicciculty doing so far.
What Council has to do is talk a good story and prepare taxpayers for an increase that could be more than 8% over last year – possibly higher – depending on what comes out of the Region.
For the Burlington council members – the situation gets them to thinking about how they will get elected next time around.
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I was told the other night that the July flooding costs and a program needed to manage this cost and finance future costs to cover estimated needs in future, is not available yet. So those costs are not in the budget.
I would not be surprised if we see a special program hived out of the general budget to finance this as a separate program or a separate line item.
I expect that this will raise tax needs even more than the increase on the table now.
That storm event was a very costly event, and managing repair, prevention, and maintenance will add costs needing costs and taxes or some other revenue source that was not being levied before the storms.
Figuring all that out is a main reason why we don’t have that analysis and data estimate figured out yet.
Taking care of the costs related to the flood would be a good use of reserve funding if the funds have not been hived off. Have they? Job 1 should be to properly fund the flood fixes so as to avoid a repeat. But no, it looks like street shaving gets the green light and we will be saddled with the tab. Setting aside street shaving for one budget cycle would be the prudent choice of a council that understands stewardship.
We were billed for all operational staff/ managers etc. in the 2024 Property Tax Budget for both Bateman and Skyway Arena. Neither of these facilities opened in 2024. We have no completion dates or opening dates for either of these facilities in to 2025.
Burlington Property Tax payers should receive a credit for both of these facilities for 2024 in the 2025 Property Tax Budget since they were not open in 2024.
And an additional Credit for 2025 and until, if and when these 2 facilities are open and operating to the public.