Budgetary transparency report card gives Hamilton city hall an 'F'

Saira Peesker · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 18, 2025 11:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 11 minutes ago

A study looking astatine fiscal accountability and transparency successful Canadian municipalities has fixed Hamilton a failing people – 1 of lone 4 retired of the country's 32 largest cities to person specified debased marks.

"They person had immoderate backsliding that is unnerving, and is specified an casual fix," says Nicholas Dahir, probe serviceman astatine the C.D. Howe Institute and co-author of the report. 

He notes that Hamilton utilized to merchandise a full of its operating and superior budgets, to amusement the city's afloat expenditure for a year, but nary longer makes it casual to find that total. He adds that the metropolis inactive hasn't released its end-of-year fiscal statements, showing what it spent, for 2023.

"There was a portion wherever I would cheque the webpage each time and inactive did not spot the 2023 fiscal statements," Dahir told CBC Hamilton connected Thursday. "It broke my bosom each time."

Report titled 'Could bash better'

The study card, which the C.D. Howe Institute has published annually since 2010, grades cities connected things specified arsenic however easy-to-find and easy-to-understand its fund accusation is; whether budgets are finished earlier the commencement of the fiscal year; if year-end fiscal statements are disposable successful a timely mode and if budgeting is done utilizing nationalist assemblage accounting standards, which are the golden modular for municipal budgets, says Dahir.

"We look astatine however casual it is for someone… to marque a determination for themselves," connected however the metropolis is spending nationalist money, helium says. 

Hamilton besides got a failing mark last year, arsenic good arsenic successful 2010, the archetypal twelvemonth of the report. Its highest marks were successful 2016, 2017 and 2021. That was earlier it began posting abstracted operating and capital budgets without combining them successful a summary, said Dahir. 

This year's study was titled "Could Do Better: Grading the Fiscal Accountability of Canada's Municipalities, 2024." Four cities – Richmond, BC, Ottawa, Quebec City and Vancouver – scored marks successful the A-range, portion Hamilton flunked alongside 3 others: Gatineau, Regina and Windsor.

"Their Fs bespeak aggregate problems with transparency, reliability and timeliness," the papers states.

Cybersecurity attack to blasted for delay: city

In an email to CBC Hamilton, Mike Zegarac, the wide manager of concern and firm services, said the debased people "reflects the interaction of past year's cybersecurity incident." 

The metropolis was deed by a ransomware onslaught successful February, 2024, which impacted 228 online "applications" and the metropolis spent overmuch of the twelvemonth moving to reconstruct them.

In his email statement, Zegarac said the attack "delayed the completion of our audited fiscal statements" which is "one of the 2 documents utilized for the Institute's assessment."

"Because the statements could not beryllium finalized and published wrong their reappraisal period, this had a important effect connected our score," helium wrote.

"We instrumentality the Institute's findings seriously... While the Institute's valuation focuses connected the timing and presumption of audited financials and the budget, it does not seizure the afloat representation of the City's fiscal wellness oregon transparency efforts. Hamilton continues to show beardown fiscal stewardship, arsenic shown by our AAA recognition rating—the highest imaginable from S&P and achieved by lone a fewer Canadian municipalities—and the caller GFOA Distinguished Budget Presentation Award recognizing the clarity and prime of our 2024 budget."

The failing people besides came the aforesaid week that the Canadian Open Data Society gave the metropolis a 2024 Open Data Accessibility Award. 

"The City of Hamilton's Open Data Portal provides an intuitive and inclusive level for residents to explore, visualize, and download metropolis data," states the nine connected its website. "The portal offers insights into captious topics, including housing, transportation, nationalist health, and economical development, with datasets similar Ward Profiles enabling granular, localized analysis."

'Somebody understands this. It's a occupation with me'

But Dahir also said Hamilton's budget format makes it hard for the mean idiosyncratic to find cardinal numbers, and says the 2024 fund started successful February, portion the fiscal twelvemonth starts successful January, meaning wealth was being spent without support from those liable for a month.

He besides said the fund and year-end fiscal statements usage antithetic accounting methods, making it imaginable to comparison whether projections lucifer up with existent expenditures.

"There's this impulse to think, 'Somebody understands this. It's a occupation with me," said Dahir, suggesting determination whitethorn adjacent beryllium councillors who conflict to grasp each aspects of the fund successful its existent format.

"Nobody wants to beryllium the archetypal 1 to rise their manus and accidental they don't recognize what's happening here."

Chris Erl, a section authorities researcher astatine Toronto Metropolitan University, said deciphering the metropolis fund is "very challenging… adjacent for radical who prosecute with municipal issues regularly. I often archer folks that I person a Ph.D. successful municipal authorities and I inactive person a hard clip knowing the budget."

He says determination appears to beryllium a "disconnect" betwixt the experts compiling the fund and the mean citizens who person to unrecorded with its consequences.

"The information that the fund is challenging for mundane Hamiltonians to recognize is further impervious that acold excessively galore parts of our section authorities run successful silos," helium says, noting this failing people could beryllium seen arsenic an accidental for improvement. 

"Council tin determination guardant with 'plain language' policies that are expanded to guarantee an accessible, simplified mentation of the fund is offered to residents," Erl said. "And, ultimately, assembly should beryllium moving toward a revised communications strategy that meaningfully engages residents with the fund process."