By Jack Brittle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
On November 25, Burlington City Council held a special meeting regarding the formal endorsement of the 2025 budget by Mayor Marianne Meed Ward.
Meed Ward released a joint statement with deputy mayor for strategy and budgets and Ward 5 Councillor Paul Sharman on the matter the following day.
“This year, inflation and economic pressures presented significant challenges for us all,” read the statement. “At the City and within Council, we faced tough decisions to manage costs while ensuring we continued to provide the essential services you rely on.”
Meed Ward also referenced the new efforts that council has made to disseminate the budget proposals in a more concise and digestible manner.
“We also heard your feedback: you want budget information to be clearer, more transparent and shared earlier in the process,” the statement continued. “That’s why, for the first time, we introduced a draft budget summary, giving you an opportunity to share your input before formal discussions began.”
During the special meeting, Eric Stern delegated in front of the council, on behalf of the “Stop the 7.5% Burlington Property Tax Increase for 2025” petition, started by BRAG (Burlington Residents Action Group) and hosted on Change.org.
The petition, which had over 1200 signatures, aimed to convince the mayor and council to reconsider the property tax increase that was proposed in the 2025 budget.
“The multi-year forecast called for 8.9%,” Stern said. “By asking for zero, we were hoping to meet somewhere in the middle at 4.4. I have to say I was surprised to see Burlington get out early again this year with a fictional 4.97% overall increase.”
Stern accused the city of misleading residents with inflated statistics about annual visits to the city’s website and lower tax increases than what was already outlined, according to Stern, in the Halton police budget for the same year.
Stern also criticized the city’s decision to approve a $148,000 SEO marketing position, asking if the government would couple this with a potential staff reduction in Service Burlington, or monitor the position with a KPI.
“What residents need is information, not marketing spin,” Stern said.
Stern argued that this position would simply slow down the posting of information and make it less accessible to residents.
“I resent being taxed to pay for information to be marketed to me,” Stern said.
Stern questioned the investments in housing, community centres, and transit, arguing that the expected increase in population is not an inevitability.
“Lower [tax] increases leave people with more money for heat pumps and EVs, [decreases] rent evictions by landlords, who through rent control can only increase rents by 2.5%, will reduce homelessness, food bank visits and crime, lowering the overall cost of policing,” Stern said.
Referring to Meed Ward as “Your worship,” who was not present at the meeting due to “attending an important funding announcement,” according to Ward 6 Councillor Angelo Bentivegna, Stern said, “You win for now. You hold all the cards. Residents are not given enough time to review the budget, it does not include explanations for the programs or what the ‘return’ on the investment will be, and requests for details go unanswered. Congratulations on passing another budget with a huge increase without the community understanding what the percentage actually is, or what the dollars are for.”
Sharman, who thanked Stern and BRAG for his extensive research about the budget, asked Stern if he would be interested in having a response from the city regarding the analysis that he and his group conducted.
Stern said yes, but reiterated that unless more transparency was provided in the next budget, he would raise the same issues brought up this year again in 2025.
Anne and Dave Marsden also delegated to council, thanking Stern for his efforts and petition, and called the special meeting to endorse the budget “premature.”
“Surely Mr. Sterns’s suggestions deserve appropriate review by staff and councillors, not just a quick review here and “Let’s endorse the budget,’” Anne said. Anne asked council to refer Stern’s petition and report to an additional budget committee.
In a question to Anne, Ward 3 Councillor Rory Nisan said that the strong mayor powers only allow an amendment to the proposed budget within a 30-day review period, which was on the 30th day at the date of the meeting. Nisan asked if Anne would still like a review despite the time frame.
Anne said yes and claimed it was “well planned” that Burlington’s review period is 25 days shorter than Oakville’s.
Blake Hurley, the commissioner of legal and legislative services, and city solicitor, said that the city could not “stop that clock” for an additional review of the contents of the petition.
Sharman also asked Craig Millar, the city’s Chief Financial Officer, whether or not the city could respond with an analysis of the questions raised in the delegation. Millar said yes.
Millar confirmed that the city will prepare to answer each of the questions raised in the delegations.
Council then deliberated on the budget. Sharman gave his final thoughts before the vote.
“We are not happy with the budget, but we’re never happy with a budget that increases taxes,” Sharman said. “We would rather always be making life easier and cheaper for everybody. While I would prefer to make this really easy and just be reducing costs despite all the prevailing winds, that is not possible.”
“I do also believe that the mayor did try to make an effort to put out as much information as she could in the three months preceding the beginning of this process,” Sharman continued.
“The reality of this is, we are taking care of the business of the city,” Sharman said. “I really do appreciate the work that’s been done by the delegates and the group of people who provided the letter [BRAG], and their questions that we will send out a set of answers to, and we can work with them in the future.”
Sharman also said that he was open to the idea of extending the review period, and indicated that the mayor would be in agreement as well.
“But in the end, I believe we’ve done the job that had to be done for 2025,” Sharman said. “I don’t like the tax increase more than anybody else, but that’s the fact of life, for all the reasons we’ve talked about over and over again. Nothing has changed.”
“The fact that we’ve been underfunded for 30 years is just being caught up with now, and the problem is, it coincides with COVID and the recession,” Sharman continued. “And in the end, the city’s got to fix the potholes and make it work.”
Only Ward 1 Councillor Kelvin Galbraith and Sharman supported the budget, while Nisan, Ward 2 Councillor Lisa Kearns and Ward 4 Councillor Shawna Stolte all made clear objections to the procedural elements of the budget creation, but specified that this does not necessarily reflect their thoughts on the legislation itself.
