The Engage Cambridge Budget survey is conducted, interpreted and presented to residents by City staff. There is no objectivity or credibility in the survey results. Further, not nearly enough responses (only 133 in 2022 and 400 in 2024) are received to make the data useable (statistically significant) as a predictor of what the Cambridge population at large wants done with their property tax dollars.
Yet results are presented in the budget document in a fashion that leads one to believe Engage Cambridge Budget input is being used to make financial decisions This is very misleading.
Why spend our hard-earned property tax dollars doing the costly survey at all?
The City uses the Engage Cambridge budget input survey results to give residents the impression they are listening.
In the 2022 Budget document, the City’s Engage Cambridge survey results said 66% of respondents supported tax increases at or above inflation. There were just 133 survey participants.
In 2022 an independent, objective, and statistically significant survey of Cambridge residents was completed by Deloitte. It showed that over 71% of Cambridge property taxpayers wanted tax increases kept at inflation or lower, even if services had to be cut.
How could the City come up with 66% wanting tax increases at or above inflation when the Deloitte study said that over 71% wanted tax increases at or below inflation? And why was the Deloitte information not published in the Budget document! The City is publishing very misleading information.
The 2024 tax increase of 7.17% was more than 2.4 times inflation and next years tax increase of 8% plus will be about 3 times the Bank of Canada’s projected inflation rate. The City’s survey is a sham. They are not listening!. Enough is enough.
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