The BMRA has published a series of suggestions regarding the 2025 TBM Draft Budget. With Council down to its last day of budget deliberations, we wanted to highlight our primary issues for consideration.
1) 11% tax levy increase is excessive
Our Town’s growth has slowed, at least temporarily, so 2025 should be seen as an opportunity, indeed a necessity, to reign in spending.
2) Core Services
However they’ve been determined - and we wonder whether the list is available for public review and input - they shouldn’t be seen as untouchable. In the past, Town Staff has spoken to taking a Zero Based Budgeting approach to department spending management. In fact, the BMRA worked with Town Staff to help pilot its use with a couple of departments – but it was never actioned.
At its most basic, ZBB would determine what services the Town should be delivering -as in Core vs Non-Core. It should look at the service standards, and how they are being met. Through this process, the Town can determine if there are opportunities to deliver them more appropriately and cost effectively.
Ratepayers expect a more rigorous review of services delivery.
3) Consulting Fees
The budget sits at $2.5 million, compared with a 2024 budget of $1.1 million. It is hard to identify in the budget all the projects this encompasses, but that is a very big number. With an 11% tax levy increase forecast, this does not seem like the year to award any discretionary consulting assignments.
4) Reserve Funds
Our amazing shrinking Reserve Funds - $77 million in 2023, forecast to decrease to $32 million in 2025. What does this mean for the Town’s long term financial future? Will we have the funds we need to grow sustainably? We would like to see an updated 5 year capital projection to get a better sense of how things stand. And we have to ask -are Council and Staff looking long and hard at how they can better collaborate in managing major infrastructure projects to realize capital
efficiencies?
5) Requests Above Base
Some of these spending requests - in particular physician recruitment - seem valid. Some seem excessive in light of our budget pressures. For instance, the funding proposed for an Urban Forestry department - starting at just under $600K, and growing to $1.7 million in 2027 - is extreme. Yes we all want to protect our tree canopy, but we have to ask, shouldn’t an effective tree bylaw, rather than creating an entirely new department, achieve that objective as we look to control
spending?
Thank you.
