Cambridge city councillors are hoping their next meeting about the 2026 draft budget goes a lot smoother than the last one.
Monday night’s meeting about the city’s second “strong mayor” budget got pretty frustrating and off track for councillors.
Mayor Jan Liggett has strong mayor powers granted by the province back in June 2023. That means she can put together a city budget focused on speeding up municipal and provincial priorities like housing, transit, and infrastructure projects.
Once Liggett presents her budget to council, councillors have 30 days to suggest changes, but she can veto any amendments they make.
The Monday meeting was supposed to give councillors a chance to bring up and debate those amendments. But according to them, the rules kept shifting – even before they got into the chamber – leaving many confused about how exactly the strong mayor law works.
“Councillors were just concerned that the process as we had understood it was a bit muddled,” Coun. Scott Hamilton told Cambridge Chronicle in an interview.
He explained some councillors were told on Friday they couldn’t present their amendments at Monday’s meeting because they didn’t meet certain “criteria” set by city staff.
But right before Monday’s session started, that decision was flipped without any explanation.
Hamilton said he “found out about half an hour before the meeting started” that his amendment would be discussed after all.
No questions allowed for staff
Even when councillors were finally allowed to introduce their amendments during the meeting, they weren’t allowed to ask city staff any questions about them.
Instead, staff support was promised at a later meeting where votes on those amendments would happen.
Councillors were told they could only talk among themselves about the changes without input from staff – which is different from how budgets normally work when staff answer technical or financial questions as needed.
Councillors pushed back during the discussion saying it was hard to properly debate without staff help.
Hamilton said he ended up answering other councillors’ questions himself – stuff usually directed at staff members.
“I’ve been part of five budgets now, and it was interesting to be … interrogated,” he said.
The mayor eventually allowed some limited questions for staff later in the meeting – another last-minute change that annoyed some councillors further.
Liggett told Cambridge Chronicle by email that Monday’s meeting aimed to let councillors raise and discuss amendments “without influence from staff,” adding that support from staff should’ve happened “ahead of time.”Cambridge Mayor Jan Liggett has strong-mayor powers, letting her guide both the budget itself and how meetings discussing changes are run. (Submitted by Jan Liggett)
Tension over strong mayor authority
This is only Cambridge’s second year using Ontario’s strong mayor system during budgeting.>
Some councillors argued on Monday that these powers give Liggett too much control over both creating the budget and managing meetings around it. >
Liggett disagreed with this idea, telling councillors many misunderstand what these powers mean.>
“The only difference here is that I sit in meetings with staff from June till now and listen to what they have to say,” she said, adding councillors “have the same rights all the way through as [they] did three years ago.”>
“There is no difference.”>
Zachary Spicer leads New College at York University in Toronto and focuses on municipal governance.>
Spicer noted while strong mayor laws don’t lay out exact debate rules, “it does shift leverage toward the mayor in determining how amendments are handled and when they’re considered.”>
He suggested Cambridge’s councillor frustration likely comes from this real shift in power caused by new legislation.>
“The strong mayor model centralizes decision-making in a way that can feel restrictive, especially when procedural expectations aren’t clearly communicated,” Spicer explained.Zachary Spicer heads New College at York University; he says this model puts more decision power with mayors but can feel limiting. (Submitted by Zachary Spicer)
The role of criteria made by staff questioned
A big sticking point came up when councillors asked about criteria city staff used to decide which amendments could be presented Monday.
An example rule required amendments be prepared “in consultation with staff,” but Spicer said it’s unusual for them to act like gatekeepers deciding what gets introduced or not.
“That kind of filtering typically requires clearly adopted, transparent rules,” he said. “Situations like this highlight tensions within strong mayor systems.”
Hamilton stressed his issue isn’t whether he or other councillor want advice from staff before suggesting budget tweaks – it’s making it mandatory that’s problematic.
The city manager Rob Axiak told council these criteria came from practices seen in other cities using strong mayors but weren’t meant as approval or rejection tools.”We are kind of building the plane as it’s flying in many ways,” he admitted during Monday’s session.By meeting end, council agreed parts of these criteria would be dropped so next time Cambridge’s budget council meets everyone can bring forward amendments without needing prior consultation with staff.Both Liggett and Hamilton saw value in debating openly despite problems.“As we navigate and make better the budget process, I expect there to be changes going forward,” Liggett wrote via email.“The criticism by councillors was fair criticism.”The next amendment session is set for Nov. 24. Afterward there’ll be a 10-day period where Mayor Liggett can veto passed changes.
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