My vote against the budget direction

Today, Council debated a motion to provide staff with direction to write and propose a budget that has a 2% tax increase. I voted against that direction.

While I have no issue with asking staff to draft a budget that takes 2% as its starting place, I am concerned by some of what I heard during today’s debate. Without assurance that Council can deviate from the draft budget with full flexibility to add or subtract the funds necessary to provide the services residents need and want, it would be irresponsible to lock ourselves into a specific tax cap.

This has been an ongoing issue in this term of Council. In our first week of this term, Council voted to adopt an approach to the budget that would see it find an offsetting cut for every new addition of funds to the draft budget. In the very first meeting, I tabled a motion to defer that vote until we better understood the implications, but took my motion off the table when we were assured by the City Clerk that “Council is supreme.” I supported the overall budget approach confident that, should we need to increase taxes slightly above 2%, that we would have the flexibility to do so.

Today, I heard from the Mayor and others that, in fact, that vote bound us for each of the four years of Council to a fixed tax increase above which we cannot go.

I continue to hold the opinion - based on my reading of the transcripts of that first vote – that this is not the case. However, while this issue is in contention, I could not vote in favour of directing staff to come back with a 2% budget increase. If there is no flexibility, but resident needs mean we need more taxes, then I would prefer to direct staff to create a budget with those needs accounted for.

One of my budget priorities this year is funding for our social services. I believe we need to adjust the baseline funding for the Community Partnerships envelope up by at least $500,000. Social agencies that provide needed services such as food banks, health centres, youth outreach groups, mental health partners, entities addressing sexual violence against women, drop-in centres and others are struggling with overwhelming demand that goes far beyond what we can meet with our current approach of providing an across-the-board 1.5% increase. We need some wriggle-room.

During the budget debate, if those funds are not in the draft budget, we’ll need to find a way to add that funding. If we can’t do it through cutting something else, that might mean adding slightly to the tax increase.

There were different views expressed this morning on what constraints Council is under. My colleague Councillor Nussbaum has submitted a formal inquiry to the City Clerk to develop some clarity. I’m looking forward to hearing the Clerk’s views.