Our seventh council meeting of the year was held on Tuesday, 08 April. The full meeting agenda, reports and video recording are linked below.
(First, we had a very quick Budget Committee meeting.)
Budget Committee – April 08, 2025
Halifax Regional Council – April 08, 2025
This was a fairly short meeting with no items directly concerning Halifax South Downtown, so I’ll highlight a few other items:
Motion:
“That Halifax Regional Council approve an increase to the maximum monthly value of transit fare products available to the Executive Director of Halifax Transit for housing and homelessness initiatives by the equivalent value of one hundred (100) Adult Monthly Passes.”
This motion passed on the consent agenda.
Motion:
“That Halifax Regional Council direct the Chief Administrative Officer to discontinue use of all active X accounts by July 15, 2025, using a phased approach that will transition to the Bluesky social media platform.”
The mayor removed this item from the consent agenda. He was concerned that people may not receive important information such as wildfire notifications easily if we move away from X. We had a good debate on the subject of switching to Bluesky and the use of social media for disseminating info to residents. The motion passed. I vote Yes.
Motion:
That Halifax Regional Council:
“1. Approve the commitment of $629,750 from the 2026/27 capital budget, $627,750 from the 2027/28 capital budget and $45,000 from the 2028/29 capital budget, as detailed in the Financial Implications section of the staff report dated March 24, 2025, in support of the Municipality’s application to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Growing Canada’s Community Canopy program; and,
2. Direct the Chief Administrative Officer to provide a letter of support to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Growing Canada’s Community Canopy program that outlines the HRM financial commitment to the program, as approved in Recommendation 1.”
This motion passed on the consent agenda.
Although council did not fund all of the tree planting staff originally budgeted for in our 2025/26 budget, we remain committed to the program in the long term. (The capital portion, $892 000, of the Urban Forestry tree planting budget was removed during the budget debates. Urban Forestry retains $944,000 in the operating budget, giving us the funds to plant an estimated 1000 trees this upcoming season.)
Item 15.2.1 Comprehensive Firefighter Cancer Screening Program
“That Halifax Regional Council direct the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), in consultation with the IAFF, Province of Nova Scotia and our service providers, to establish a comprehensive firefighter cancer screening program effective no later than January 1, 2026.”
This motion passed on the consent agenda. Passing this was a rewarding part of the budget process.
Item 15.5.2 Mayor Fillmore – 2026-2027 Budget and Business Plan Council Direction
“That Halifax Regional Council direct the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) to return to Council by June 2025 with a staff report that includes feasible options and considerations for the 2026/2027 budget and business planning process including the following:
1. Hold expenditure levels flat for the 2026/2027 budget to keep the total budget at 1.35B with consideration for an increase for inflation based on CPI.
2. Identify operating efficiencies and savings that could be implemented in this current budget year.
3. Examine options for long term efficiencies and savings in both the operating and capital budget including areas of duplication, service modernization, project integration, and potential redeployment of resources,
4. Identify options for revenue diversification and funding including financing tools, user fees, private and public partnerships, and revenue sharing.
5. Consider financial sustainability and service delivery enhancement opportunities for core services to identify efficiencies, find capacity, and increase productivity,
6. Timeline for the annual business planning and budget process that would be shorter and start earlier for Council and conclude with an approved budget no later than February 28th.”
This motion passed. I voted No to items 1 & 6 and Yes to items 2, 3 4, & 5.
Items were added to the text of item 1, such as to allow for funding collective agreements to be negotiated etc. (the wording will be clear in the Minutes of this meeting), but I am still not comfortable with the concept of being bound by a particular tax rate or budget dollar value goal when we are debating the budget next year. I remain focused HRM’s long term financial sustainability, maintaining or improving service delivery and promoting policy and programs that we can be proud of. As the 2025/26 fiscal year does not end until 31 March, 2026, I am more comfortable finalizing the budget after this date.
Motion:
“That Halifax Regional Council:
1. Adopt the Resolution for Approval of Operating Budgets, Capital Plan and Tax Rates for Fiscal 2025/26 as set out in Schedule 1 of the staff report dated April 4, 2025.
2. Approve the attached Resolution to approve Area Rates and Uniform Charges for fiscal year 2025/26, as well as the Schedules of Area Tax Rates and Budgeted Revenues as set out in Schedule 2 of the staff report dated April 4, 2025.
3. Adopt the amendments to Administrative Order 2018-003-ADM, Respecting Private Road Maintenance, as set out in Attachment F to the staff report dated April 4, 2025.”
The budget passed 11 votes Yes to 3 No. I voted No because I don’t like using our reserve funds (a $10M Central Library Reserve fund) to fund our operating budget especially without being willing to look for savings in the police budget. I commented on this at 10:50 in the video.