Public gets to hear what the city wants to set the tax rate at - thinking upwards of 3.5% more than last year.

By Pepper Parr

January 28, 2015

BURLINGTON, ON

It is that time of year again – when the city sets out what they want to take from your wallet – they call it taxes.

The setting and the approach to this interaction with the public will be considerably different this year. The locale will be the Mainway Recreation Centre –  where there is quite a bit more room; things were getting a bit tight at the Art Gallery.

A rapt audience listened to an overview of the 2014 budget. What they have yet to have explained to them is the desperate situation the city will be in ten years from now if something isn’t done in the next few years to figure out how we are going to pay for the maintenance of the roads we have.

There will be the obligatory budget overview.

There will be a demonstration of the Burlington Open Budget visual application.

There will be a table top exercise – that’s when participants get to think about some of the specifics in the budget that was explained and make comments on the different initiatives the city is proposing

This is the year the city moved to budgeting based on the services provided rather than planned spending by departments. The city has a handful of acronyms; RBA – Results Based Accountability is the one that they seem to favour.

When the city wants to provide a new service there has to be a business case made – the public will get to hear what some of the business cases are this year.

Vanessa Warren and Ken Woodruff going through the pages of the workbook at the 2014 budget review.

In the past the city has used small hand held clickers – sort of like a TV remote control. Data is put up on a screen and people are asked to use the clickers to indicate which of the options given they prefer.

While all this data gathering is interesting – the basics of the budget have already been determined. City staff have been working on the document for months – the broad strokes are in place – what the public is being asked to do at this point is comment on what has been done – but there is no real opportunity to shape the city’s financial plan.

Vanessa Warren, one of the founders of the Rural Burlington Greenbelt coalition and a candidate for the ward 6 seat which Blair Lancaster won for the second time in October, commented at the last public review of the budget that “none of the remarks made at the only public meeting being held on the budget would be available before delegations were made.” Warren wanted more information and wanted it sooner so comments could have a real impact.

It was at the 2014 review that John Birch tried to hi-jack the event and get in his pitch for funding of the LaSalle Park Marina; his efforts drew howls of derision. Hopefully the event facilitator will keep a tighter rein on where speakers go with their comments.

With a little luck the evening will see a demonstration of the city’s new web site. What we’ve seen so far appears to be a significant improvement over what has been in place for the last five years. Atrocious is an apt word to describe what the public has had to put up with.

A smart, savvy crew has done some solid work – the peak we had at the web site was good. Let’s see if the follow up is as good.

Thursday – at the Mainway Recreation Centre – 7:00 to 9:00 pm. It will be different this year.