Cambridge's strong mayor budget process sparks confusion, frustration for councillors
CBC
Cambridge city councillors hope their next meeting to talk about the 2026 draft budget goes much more smoothly than the first.
Councillors were left frustrated Monday night as a meeting discussing the city’s second-ever “strong mayor” budget veered off course.
Mayor Jan Liggett has strong mayor powers given to her by the provincial government in June 2023. As part of that, she's permitted to craft a city budget with a focus on areas that would speed up delivery of municipal-provincial priorities, including housing, transit and infrastructure projects.
Once Liggett presents her budget to council, councillors have 30 days to propose amendments to the budget, but Liggett can veto amendments made by councillors.
The meeting on Monday was intended to give councillors a chance to present and debate those amendments. But councillors say the rules kept changing — even before they stepped into the chamber, and it has left many of them unsure how exactly strong mayor power legislation works.
“Councillors were just concerned that the process as we had understood it was a bit muddled,” said Coun. Scott Hamilton in an interview with CBC News.
He said some councillors were told on Friday they would not be allowed to present their amendments at Monday’s meeting because they failed to meet “criteria” developed by city staff.
But shortly before Monday’s meeting began, that decision was reversed without explanation.
Hamilton said he "found out about half an hour before the meeting started" that he would be discussing his amendment at the meeting.
Even once councillors were permitted to introduce amendments at the meeting, they were told they couldn’t ask city staff any questions about them.
Instead, councillors were told staff would provide support at a later meeting, when votes on the amendments ewre scheduled to take place.
Councillors were told they could discuss the amendments among themselves, without staff input, which is a break from the traditional budget process where staff answer technical and financial questions as they arise.
Councillors pushed back during the meeting, saying they couldn’t meaningfully debate their amendments without staff input.
Hamilton said he ended up fielding questions from other councillors himself — questions that would normally be directed to staff.
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