Article Published Nov 22, 2024, in the Waterloo Record
Surely, we could legislate standardized financial reporting from one municipality to the next, so the increases in Cambridge are directly comparable to those in Chatham, writes Mike Farwell.
The “strong-mayor budget” in Cambridge is not what it seems, and that raises a number of concerns.
In its announcement about the proposed budget in late October, the city of Cambridge said it provided “funding for more than 140 city services and an infrastructure renewal levy, resulting in a total property tax increase of 1.26 per cent.”
But that headline number tells only a fraction of the financial story. Earlier this year, Cambridge changed the way it collected stormwater costs, shifting them from the tax bill to the utility bill. By removing this cost from the tax bill, the proposed increase is artificially lower compared to last year.
Unfortunately, to find the true cost compared to last year in Cambridge, you must dig more than a dozen pages into the 258-page budget document. That’s when you’ll learn that “if the stormwater rate had not been separated out, the increase would have been 3.68 per cent plus an additional one per cent infrastructure levy.”
In other words, Cambridge residents will feel an increase of 4.68 per cent in city-related costs next year, well above the headline number of 1.26 per cent the city is trying so hard to promote.
This apples-to-apples comparison should be clearly noted in the communications about this year’s budget and, in the interest of fairness, for several years still as residents adjust to the new tax bill reporting with the stormwater costs removed.
Fortunately, Waterloo Region is still well-served by experienced journalists who did the heavy lifting on behalf of Cambridge residents and reported the accurate number and full weight of the increase.
This includes the impact of the one per cent infrastructure levy, an amount the city also doesn’t include in its headline number. Whether you call it a tax, a premium, or a levy, it’s still an additional cost that Cambridge residents will bear.
Also concerning, though, is how the city can change the way it reports tax increases from one year to the next.
To be fair, Cambridge is not the only city that separates its stormwater rate from the total tax increase. The question that remains, though, is why cities have a choice in how they report increases to residents.
The way things work now, it seems that cities can choose the method of reporting that paints the most flattering picture, even if that picture is incomplete for residents.
For example, our regional government often talks about its proposed tax increase before the cost of policing is taken into account. Yet we never talk about a proposed increase before other regional services like transit or paramedic services are considered.
In our cities, the proposed tax increases are always reported inclusive of fire services.
Surely, we could legislate standardized financial reporting from one municipality to the next, so the increases in Cambridge are directly comparable to those in Chatham.
Residents deserve nothing less than full transparency when it comes to how much more they’ll be paying.
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