Property Taxpayers Alliance – A proposal to the City of Cambridge asking them to fix the annual budget document transparency, disclosure and readability issues

On March 8th the Property Taxpayers Alliance (PTA) met with Mayor Jan Liggett, City Manager David Calder, and Chief Financial Officer Sheryl Ayres.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss changes we felt should be made to the annual “Budget and Business Plan document” to significantly improve disclosure, transparency and readability.

The PTA has not heard back from the City on the proposal and therefore has decided to make its recommendations public.

Please click this link – Proposal To The City of Cambridge – to access the proposal. It also requires a copy of the – City’s final 2024 Budget and Business Plan – as this document is used as a reference.

The City’s budget document lacks clarity and fails to disclose key information:

• Did you know that the average SWB budget increase for municipal employees was 8.4%? Of course not. This information was buried/spread out over 100 pages in the budget document! This is an unacceptable use of our hard-earned property tax dollars! Property taxpayers are living with wage adjustments at just inflation or less!
• The City introduced a 1% tax levy for infrastructure. Do you know how this money will be spent? There is no clear explanation in the budget document – no plan to address what the City calls a serious “The Infrastructure Gap”. There should be!
• Did you know that the results of the Engage Cambridge Budget survey done each year, and published in the respective Budget and Business Plan, are meaningless? They have no statistical significance and can’t be used to reflect what Cambridge residents at large want done with their property taxes. Yet the City publishes these results each year running the risk of misleading readers. And the survey is designed by the City, using leading questions, limiting your answer options to reflect what they want to hear. The execution of the Engage Cambridge Budget survey, including all the advertising, is very expensive and a huge waste of taxpayer money. So why does the City do it? Sadly, its to create the impression they are listening.
  • Consider the following:
    • the 2022 Engage Cambridge Budget survey said that 66% of respondents supported tax increases at or above inflation. The survey involved just 133 responses and had absolutely no statistical significance. No legitimate conclusions can be drawn.
    • Yet .. a 2022 statistically significance study involving 1000’s of Cambridge residents conducted by Deloitte accurate to +/- 5% showed that more than 71% wanted property tax increases at inflation or below, even if it meant cutting services
    • The Deloitte results are 100% more accurate than the Engage Cambridge study results – but they went unmentioned in the 2022 Budget document. Residents aren’t even aware of this study! Its on the City website layers and layers deep. Do you think they want you to know about this study?
• The City is not listening to us!!

Please submit any questions you may have to info@propertytaxpayer.ca.

Signed,

Property Taxpayers Alliance