Budget uproar

While Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay unveiled a 2009 budget which his team touted as cautious and rigorous last Wednesday, West Island mayors came out strongly against it, claiming savings that should have been there for reconstituted municipalities based on an agreement signed in the summer were not there, and this would negatively affect their own budget calculations. "We expected to see a reduction in the agglomeration budget," said Pointe Claire Mayor Bill McMurchie.

According to McMurchie, the agreement signed between the 15 demerged municipalities on the Island of Montreal, the agglomeration and the provincial government about Bill 22, a piece of legislation that would redefine the division of powers between Montreal and the suburban cities, was supposed to guarantee a minor boost to the budgets of each demerged municipality. "We just didn't get our share of the agreement," McMurchie said.

Pointe Claire city council is set to adopt its 2009 budget on Monday.

With the agreement returning some agglomeration responsibilities like maintenance of arterial roads or sports centre expenses back to demerged cities, each municipality should have received a share of $30 million paid to Montreal by the provincial government. However, that did not happen.

Instead, Beaconsfield Mayor Bob Benedetti said, the City of Montreal's budget went up by roughly that amount. He acknowledged some of Montreal's expenses, such as more investment into public transit or infrastructure. However, he said those expenses come up to $107 million, only a fraction of Montreal's total budget.

Dorval Mayor Edgar Rouleau was also highly critical of the budget. "I'm not sure we are getting our fair share of the total budget," Rouleau said.

The $30 million should have been divided between the demerged cities according to each of their own expenses. Benedetti estimated Beaconsfield should have gotten about $1.2 million, whereas Rouleau pinned Dorval's number closer to $3 million. "We expected a reduction in the budget," Rouleau said, "but we also expected Montreal to find a way (to avoid giving us the money)."

With the reduction not met, the mayors said they would have to take a careful look at their own budgets. "It's back to the drawing board," Benedetti admitted, also insisting that his administration would not resort to raising Beaconsfield residents' taxes to make up for the lost savings. "I just can't do that," he said.

McMurchie said the additional responses downloaded on Pointe Claire mean that city also has to look at its 2009 budget again, but did not comment on whether he would have to raise taxes again. "We're tabling our budget Dec. 18," Rouleau said. Until then, he would also have to meet with his council and various city service departments to discuss what to do in light of Montreal's announcements.

Kirkland will adopt its budget Dec. 15 while Beaconsfield’s budget meeting is set for Dec. 17.