By Pepper Parr
September 14th, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
This is the process a city budget goes through each year.
It will be a different budget process this year. Why?
There is now legislation which gives the Mayor the power to direct the Chief Financial Officer to produce a budget that is delivered to members of Council not later than October 30th.
Then what? The schedule as set out in the Strong Mayor legislation.
Some staff members are already having difficulty with the process – it will be awkward, bumpy – but eventually there will be a budget.
A remark by the Mayor during a Standing Committee meeting left a glimmer of hope.
She told her colleagues that she was prepared to hear whatever council might have in mind in the way of a cap on just how high the budget increase could go.
Related editorial opinion:
Nothing frugal about this mayor
Does anyone know how much of our budget went to Burlington Post advertising which stopped delivering to a lot of the community who live in apt. Buildings years ago.
There is nothing democratic about strong mayor powers. So it will be interesting to see what the Mayor, who back when she wasn’t mayor, used to regularly say “it’s about democracy!” when she was working for us and arguing against abuse of power, etc., has to say now. I always thought she was passionate about democratic principles.
I was therefore disappointed that she did not say that she won’t use her strong mayor powers but will instead go with what the majority wants. So, is it still about democracy or has power corrupted? We shall soon see.
On CHCH yesterday She said it wouldn’t be the 7.8 % that staff had proposed.
Of course she also said there are 40,000 square feet available at Bateman
https://www.chch.com/burlington-mayor-discusses-development-projects-budget/
And check out the Mayoral Strut at around 4:30
Anyone else have have a flash back to the Sixties?