By Pepper Parr
November 3rd, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
There was a lot of buildup to what the Mayor was going to put forward in the way of a budget but at the end of the meeting the public didn’t know very much more about what the Mayor is proposing other than she has drawn a line in the sand with the number 4.99% on it.
That’s her number.
Mayor Marianne Meed Ward putting her budget before City Council.
The Mayor is presenting the budget as a collaborative effort with every member of Council onside – but we have yet to hear what the individual council members think.
The time line for getting the budget cast in stone and ready for the Finance department to send out tax bills is set out below:
Monday and Tuesday of next week – Nov. 6 and 7, 2023 – Council workshops
City staff will provide more details on the additional investments in the 2024 Financial Needs and Multi-Year Forecast Reference Document.
Nov. 7, 2023 –Budget Telephone Town Hall
Residents can join the call starting at 7 p.m. to ask questions about the 2024 proposed budget. The telephone town will be hosted by Mayor Meed Ward and run until 8:30 p.m.
Nov. 21 and 23, 2023 – Review of proposed Mayor’s 2024 budget at meeting of Corporate Services, Strategy, Risk and Accountability (CSSRA) committee, with Special Council meeting to follow.
Council members agree that this new budget process was confusing, a lot different than the way budgets were determined in the past.
Council is pressed for time and there really isn’t all that much in the way of opportunity for the average person to take part.
When documents are put before Council they have to first be read into the record. Sometimes this is a Staff report and it is taken as a Receive and File. They won’t be doing anything with the report other than to discuss it.
On other occasions the document is introduced by way of a motion which is what was done on Thursday. It took a bit of word-smithing to get the document before the public.
The first draft of the motion was to:
Receive the Mayor’s Operating Budget with a proposed net tax levy amount of $243,400,298, and present the budget to the November 21st and November 23rd (if required) CSSRA Budget Committee for review and any amendments made by Council; and
Receive the Mayor’s 2024 Capital Budget with a gross amount of $88,556,830, a debenture requirement of $6,900,000, and the 2025-2033 capital forecast with a gross amount of $859,123,570, and a debenture requirement of $24,950,000 as outlined in the Financial Needs and Multi-Year Forecast as am mended by Council; and
Administer the debenture in the amount of $6,900,000 in 2024 as tax supported debt, and
Incorporate the 2024 financial needs and multi year overview and accompanying reference document into the Mayor’s 2024 budget, as amended and noted, and
Approve that any surplus or deficit resulting from a difference between the actual net assessment growth and the estimated 0.75 net assessment growth be transferred to/from the Tax Rate Stabilization Fund; and
Declare that, in accordance with sis, 5(1)5 of the Development Charges Act, 1997 and s. 5 of the Ontario Regulation 82/98, it is council’s clear intention that the excess capacity provided by the above – referenced works will be paid for by future development charges.
That version didn’t satisfy anyone, Treasurer Joan Ford had concerns -so they took a break and reworked the motion and came up with the following
Councillor Paul Sharman explaining that times were tough and Council was going to have to make some hard decisions.
Moved by Mayor Meed Ward
Seconded by Councillor Paul Sharman
The the following items a,b,c,d are subject to amendments made at the CSSRA Budget Committee November 21 and November 22 and associated Council meetings
Administer the debenture in the amount of $6,900,000 in 2024 as tax supported debt,and
Incorporate the 2024 financial needs and multi year overview and accompanying reference document into the Mayor’s 2024 budget, as amended and noted, and
Approve that any surplus or deficit resulting from a difference between the actual net assessment growth and the estimated 0.75 net assessment growth be transferred to/from the Tax Rate Stabilization Fund; and
Declare that, in accordance with sis, 5(1)5 of the Development Charges Act, 1997 and s. 5 of the Ontario Regulation 82/98, it is council’s clear intention that the excess capacity provided by the above – referenced works will be paid for by future development charges.
The motion vote was unanimous.
The one thing that is very clear is – they want to borrow $6.9 million and let future taxpayers pick up the cost.
Much more to say on just what this budget is about once we hear what Councillors have to say on Monday and Tuesday of next week.
Here’s a novel thought. Scrap / freeze the total 6.695 m in salaries instead of just 1.02 m of it and scrap the 0.97% DIR tax (1.32 m). Then they don’t need to borrow 6.9m. Esp at current rates.
The budget wants to increase the Dedicated Infrastructure Renewal Tax from 1.60% to 2%, which converts to 0.97% of the proposed tax increase. The problem with this budget and most things this Mayor and Council present to the public is that it’s not explained in plain English. Other municipalities do and many even have a page of definitions. The City of Burlington’s failure to do this contributes to the lack of transparency.
Most here probably know what the DIR is. For the newbies who don’t, in a nutshell. The city has a large, diverse range of assets with a total asset replacement value (ARV) of $6.3 billion. The city has adopted a policy for a minimum balance of 2% of this replacement value (so $126 m) to be maintained so there’s $ to make repairs or replace assets. But this is policy, not law. The lifespan of assets is different for each category but only Corporate Fleet (cars), Fire, and IT have 10 year lifespans with the rest being 30-110 years. In other words, assets need to be repaired to keep them in good working order but we are not replacing the majority of things on a regular basis. Furthermore, the majority of the city’s assets have been defined as in good or very good condition meaning they are nowhere near the end of their life contrary to what has been implied in this and recent budgets.
$126 million is alot of money to keep on hand for assets that have a long way to go before needing replacement. Further, last year the total asset value was stated at $5.3 billion. But they had a re-evaluation done. The difference between 2% of $5.3 B vs $6.3 B is $20 million dollars and the city wants you to cough that up.
At the end of 2022, there was $30 m in this fund. To try to increase the amount in the fund, the city keeps increasing the % of this DIR tax. It was increased from 1.25% to 1.60% in 2023 and was supposed to stay there for the next 10 years. The increase from 1.60% to 2.0%, in real dollars is an increase from $3.1 m in 2023 to $4.4 m in 2024 and a real increase to your taxes of 0.97%. That’s not just an additional $1.32 m we’d pay in 2024. It’d be every year from now on until we reach 126m or until they decrease the 2% DIR tax which is unlikely. Further the value of assets being added is always going to be higher than those removed and so the ARV is always going to be increasing.
That’s one of the biggest problems with this method. As the city’s assets increase, the city says, well the fund is no longer sufficient to keep this base level of funding so we need to increase the DIR tax even further. Every new bus, fire truck, road built, storm drain.
It is almost impossible for a city like Burlington to ever meet this 2% target. And when Skyway and Bateman are added? It will literally be out of reach until the next century. Yet here it is in the second budget in a row, after having already increased the tax by 0.35%, expecting taxpayers to swallow another 0.40% increase to 2.0%.
I’m not disputing the need to have sufficient funds on hand. But imo, this is a want to have, not have to have right now when people’s mortgages are jumping from 2% to 6.5 or 7%. Certainly it’d be nice to have $126 m in the bank so they can replace anything they want at a moment’s notice. In the real world, wanting $126 m and it happening are not the same thing. They chose to accelerate funding to the program. There is no law saying it has to be done. Yet here is this Mayor demanding it, blind to the fact that having a perfect system is not only unrealistic, but puts a tremendous financial burden on taxpayers. Taxpayers pockets are not bottomless, they have other obligations. Money does not grow on trees, no matter how many of them the city plants.
Why do you think a salary freeze is a novel idea?
That’s what got Paul Sharman elected way back when.
How do you propose that the city meet the requirements of Bill 109?
The Ford government changed the rules and the city doesn’t have the staff to handle the shortened time period. Staff asked council to have two CPRM meetings per month and a second council meeting to deal only with CPRM issues.
That takes 14 days off the time to get things approved. The alternative which is what council is now proposing is to call special committee and council meetings every two weeks which puts the burden on staff but allows the councilors to better plan their agendas.
I was impressed by the presentation by the three executive directors at the EICS meeting about their plans to shorten and parallel track the processes.
They need people to rework computer systems and processes to make that happen. If you have tried finding anything on the Burlington website you will realize how badly out of date it is. Try putting in Petition in the search box and see what comes up.
The data on the page isn’t even accurate as you just found out.
I also suggest you read the report on the financial state of the city that indicates we have a $500 million unfunded liability.
Where were you when the $100 million for Bateman was being put through Council behind closed doors. Did you miss Councilor Stolte being hauled before the Integrity Commissioner for mentioning a possible $50 million project cost?
Are you aware of how much has been spent on salaries btw last year and this? The attitude being they aren’t competitive. That’s completely false. Analysis shows ciity of Burlington employees made about 14K more on average than Oakville. On the website is boasts how they only want the best and will pay to get it. What happened to hiring strong competent loyal people? I only looked at it briefly but it seems like the turn around time is quick at Burlington and one has to ask why. They are already paid more than local municipalities so I don’t believe its that. DEOO is a major part of that reason That Design, Evolution. Organization. It’s discussed quite a bit in the budget. Its a massive restructuring and face lift to what work looks like. A restructure of city hall on every level.
Then there is the budget feedback survey which MMW claims says people want more services, which would translate to more salaries. Except here’s the thing. In that survey, 55% of people said CUT services to maintain or reduce taxes. So we are spending money for more hires and salary increases despite feedback that says we don’t want that.
It’s interesting you bring up this 500 m deficit. Crying that they’re bleeding money because of this but hey, let’s buy Bateman, and let Skyway get out of control to 40 m, renovate city hall and Civic Square, buy new buses so we can have more empty ones. But we’ll turn them green so get points for that even tho it doesn’t change the fact transit was still 4.5 m in the hole last year.
And one other thing I’m curious about. If the IT is so old, and I’m not saying it isn’t, the website alone is horrific. But if it was such an integral item why wasn’t it first on the list? So it came after salary increases, after renos, after alot of stuff. So how important was it really
Also, my comments were around how they could avoid 6.9 m in debt. I don’t see any alternates in your response. My answer on salaries was simply . Now isn’t the time to be giving everyone raises and over spending on hires when you have taxpayers you’re sending to the poorhouse. Or that’s just not a consideration anymore?
It shouldn’t be on the taxpayer bc this mayor and council are fiscally irresponsible and have don’t know how to prioritize
Wendy
I fail to see how your thoughts are novel.
Lydia Thomas expressed the same ideas.
I know this council is fiscally irresponsible.
I’ve known it since they approved $4 million from the Hydro Reserve fund
for the wave break at LaSalle Park.
The Mayor has never seen a reserve fund she can’t find another use for.
Look at the Rainbow Crosswalks.
I signed your petition
I made a contribution
I’ve asked you to get in touch off-line.
Why haven’t you?
I started to answer this and lost it so not sure if its a repeat. Finding ways to slash an untenable budget need not be novel. I dont agree with her ridiculous 5 yr plan. I make no apologies for that. MMW has made a point of letting it be known how she feels about salaries and claiming burlington city workers are underpaid relative to other municipalitiies. Its why i did on analysis of it and wrote a piece on it several months ago. Her 5 yr plan speaks about the need to increase salaries on several occasions. The citys website boasts how we want only the best and will pay anything to get and keep them. And as i said, if people are not staying, i suspect its more the work place than $. Oakville makes alot less and their workers generally happy. So i dont buy that hiring 200 new people and handing out raises is Ford’s fault. Thats giving MMW a scapegoat shes not deserving of and a disservice to the taxpayers shes bleeding dry under her grandiose visions that have nothing to do with Ford. As to reports, ive learned quickly that if its designed for public consumption, buyer beware as to its authenticity. As to contacting you, I dont have your details.
Editor’s Note: Wendy is correct – she did not have contact details for Jim because I made an error and sent the wrong address
Wendy,
I apologize there appears to be some miscommunication.
I see that some articles have been deleted.
I’ll get in touch with Pepper to sort it out.
FYI- I was the only person to delegate on Bateman when it came to council last December
Finding a way to cut the budget doesn’t need to be novel, just prudent. MMW has made no secret of the fact that she thinks city workers need to be paid more. Its throughout the budget framework this year and last. Her claims that they are paid less than other municipalities lead me to analyzing both Burlington and Oakville’s financial statements and writing a piece on it several months ago to show that MMW’s claims were false. The city’s website boasts how they want only the best and will pay whatever they need to to get them and retain them.
So respectfully, I feel that the suggestion that there needs to be 200 new hires and everyone needs pay raises because of Bill 109 to be a red herring.
As well, imo, freezing city wages in the 90’s when there was a deep recession from 90-92 and double digit interest rates in the late 80’s and part of the 90’s would be a responsible, prudent move. Companies were laying people off yet the city should have acted differently? Sharman using it now to justify anything wreaks of his desperation.
MMW and Paul Sharman have lied to the public extensively on issues surrounding this budget. If the reasons for the tax increases are as you say, then why lie?
On Oct 30, in Burlington Today: “Meed Ward said that many people can absorb a tax increase.
“They are expecting us to deliver services and enhanced services,” she said, noting there are 64 pages of feedback from the community with a mix of comments, but one theme stood out – additional services from the city.”
That’s utterly false. The theme is not additional services. In the Budget Feedback Survey referred to, 55% chose cut services to reduce or maintain taxes. But she has chosen to outright ignore it. In my own survey that I ran in Sep 2023, 39% of respondents said they wanted a 0% increase or a tax cut. Whether 39% or 55%, its clear that additional services are not what the public wants and most certainly, not a tax increase to pay for them, and not one of the magnitude they are pushing. It begs the question, why is MMW telling the press something completely different than what’s in the feedback results?
As well, I went thru all 711 responses where the survey asked what is the most important issue to taxpayers and what do you feel this budget should focus on? I came up with 10 categories I felt represented the responses. I’d challenge anyone to review my work and say its not reasonable or fair.
For reduce / maintain taxes / cost of living, there were 214 responses. They stated outright that taxes were too high, needed to be cut or needed to be maintained. Under Reduce Spending / Inefficiencies, there were 62 responses. For where respondents felt there should be a focus on increasing services or infrastructure or stated specific things they wanted the city to do, and the response did not fall under Halton, provincial or federal, I created a category called Increased Services / Infrastructure. There were 154 responses, or 21.6% of all respondents, that fell under this category. 21.6% is a far cry from being the theme that stood out as claimed by MMW.
Even with the 154 responses, there are 3 important things to be considered. (1) The city did not tell respondents the proposed tax hike was 7.82% (at the time they took it). That’s highly misleading. (2) When people know its going to cost them more, they respond differently. (3) Many, if not most of the issues that taxpayers identified as important are not even addressed in this budget.
For 2023 the city used the results to justify the tax hike. I threw a wrench in that this year by telling as many respondents as I was able about the proposed tax hike. It doesn’t seem to matter as MMW has decided to fabricate the results as indicated in her remarks to Burlington Today and do what she wants irrespective of what taxpayers have said.
On Nov 3, 2023, to Inside Halton, Sharman stated: “The house needs maintenance, and we have to undertake that. My general view of this budget is it’s not what we had anticipated last year. We were hoping that it would be a one-and-done and we would be returning to a relatively more normal tax rate increases for the rest of this term. I think we’re all kind of struggling with the fact that that’s not very possible,” said Sharman.
Again, totally false. The 5 yr plan was devised in 2022, maybe earlier. Sharman knew full well last year they were planning another tax hike of 7.82% for 2024. Just like they know they have another 6.06% planned for 2025. But it seems perfectly fine to lie through his teeth to the public.
What’s equally disturbing is that the press fails to call him out on it. If this was Toronto, it would never happen. But in Burlington media seems to just report the news, not investigate it, to the extreme detriment of the unsuspecting public.
Hopefully MMW gets questioned about these things, or at least called out on them during the call in tonight because now thousands of Burlington residents do know about the budget results and Sharman’s false claims about it being a one off. At this point, with all the robo-calling, and the lack of integrity out of this council, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was rigged to have every caller singing her praises and that of this unpalatable budget.
As to Paul Sharman and the 500m deficit? Municipalities aren’t allowed to run deficits yet he hasn’t had a problem telling the press that’s what this is. That stopped abruptly after I reported him. That agency isn’t allowed to run investigations coming from the public but they do follow up when the issue is coming from an informed member of the public. He can say it was a slip of the tongue. But when its used repeatedly, my impression is that’s its a fear tactic to try to force the public to accept the tax increase.
One thing is for certain. Its not a deficit. Whether its a true liability for 500m, I have my doubts. I don’t doubt that there are still assets in need of replacement. Its how much that I call into question given that this Mayor and Council have no problem lying to the public. Using a 500m liability is a great thing to hide behind as an excuse to implement their 5 yr plan, one that by and large was never run by the public. The DEOO, a very costly restructure of city hall, being part of that. Between salaries, renovations, IT, civic square (1.3 of city $), its 20m +/- at this point.
In the 2021 Asset Management Plan, 78% of assets were categorized as Fair, Good, or Very Good. Only 6% were classified as very poor. This report does not list exactly what is in the category of very poor. I’d like to see that list. A detailed list, not it buried in skewed %, but rather of every single item, its classification of very poor or poor, its estimated remaining life, its original cost and its replacement cost. Instead it’s skewed by saying X% is in fair, poor or very poor. That these reports fail to draw straight lines seems quite purposeful.
Of interest is an item at the very back of the report. It falls under Ontario Legislation. It requires the municipality to report the costs to maintain current level of service for core assets. The city reports the following:
On average it will cost $35M annually to ensure the no more than 1% of roadways will be in Very Poor condition.
• On average it will cost $9M annually to ensure the no more than 1% of transportation structures will be in Very Poor condition.
• On average it will cost $7.7M annually to ensure the no more than 1% of storm will be in Very Poor condition.
That’s 51.7 m to have all roads, all transportation structures, and all storm systems in decent condition.
Of course, we might have more $ for asset replacement if we weren’t doing things like repaving Plains road a week after the project was complete bc they forgot storm grates. There was the Palmer area repaved about 3x in 3 yrs. Again, we might have more $ for assets if development and planning in this city wasn’t so subpar
I might add that in reviewing the asset management plan, there was 2% in the category of poor for IT and NOTHING for very poor. Yet we have Sharman saying its dated back to the 80’s. Which of course could never be true if the public thought about that for more than a millisecond. What OS was it back then? Win 3, DOS? Is he suggesting that a 1980’s, even 1990’s mainframe would still be functional? That it could handle processing anything for a modern city? How ridiculous.
Yet we have Sharman telling the public we have ancient IT and therefore it justifies allocate 1.1m of this budget to it and it has to be right now. I wonder if he gets a good laugh at how gullible the public is. Again, 2% in the poor and nothing in the very poor category, which is where 1980-1990’s IT would be.
We have Sharman telling the public that so much of the budget is focused on this infrastructure which is in such dire straits, a 500m liability and the the validity of that claim is highly questionable. The thing about lying is that it puts all of your credibility in question. At least some of what Sharman is saying is utterly false and nobody is calling him on it.
So I’d read the 500m deficit report except I dislike having my time wasted. Will it be like every other report I’ve read that projects the image they want instead of the truth? And the public doesn’t have the time to read 700+ page reports, nevermind analyze them to see if they pass the smell test. We are supposed to be able to trust these reports. Instead we have reports like the 2024 Financial Needs and Multi Plan Forecast that is full of information that is not reliable. Eg pg 33 where they use a BMA report to try to suggest Burlington property taxes are 3rd lowest of 12 Ontario municipalities? And that they’re lower than Oakville and Toronto? That is absolutely untrue with Burlington being higher than both and Burlington now almost 2x that of Toronto.
The more I review, the more disgusted I am at the level of untruths this Mayor and council are feeding the public. As well, the more disappointed I am that the media in this city just parrot what they say. Outside of this media outlet and perhaps the Bay Observer, there seems to be a glaring lack of investigative journalism in this city to call them out on it. It makes me feel like anything I’m doing here is in vane.
Editor’s note: From time to time a comment comes in that is just too long. A reader taught me some of the lingo that my demographic is not familiar with: TLDR – too long – didn’t read.
Basically the motion could have been receive the Mayor’s Budget and refer to the CSSRA meetings on Nov 21/23
The clerk should have explained why it was done this way.
The fact that he is comfortable with it doesn’t help the public to understand the Process.
Typical lack of transparency.
“Isn’t all that much opportunity for the average person to take part.” that is the way our Mayor likes it.