Cobourg Mayor Says He Won’t Use Veto Powers – Budget Could Be Finalized Wednesday

Pete Fisher
13 hours ago
• Categories: City Hall, Local

Cobourg’s tax levy rate could increase by 3% following council amendments, up slightly from the draft 2026 budget introduced last week by Mayor Lucas Cleveland.

Cleveland’s proposed budget, his first under Strong Mayor Powers granted by the province earlier this year, called for a 2.70% increase, a number reached in large part by using an extra $1.13 million in Cobourg Police Service reserves to offset the request from the service, which came in at 20.5%. Using the reserves brought the number down to a 6.31% increase over last year on the tax levy.
Council is within its 30-day window to make any amendments to the mayor’s budget. Under the Strong

Mayor Powers legislation, the mayor would then have 10 days to veto the amendments, however Cleveland stressed several times Monday during a special council meeting he will not be exercising that right.

“I would like to make it very well known to the public and to this council, any decisions by council will remain final,” Cleveland said. “I have no intention of using any Strong Mayor veto.”

Cleveland noted it was the first mayor’s budget in Cobourg through the Strong Mayor Powers from the province issued earlier this year.

“Much has been said about the timing of this budget, much has been suggested that this is in some way form shape an election budget,” he remarked. “For those detractors I would say please take that up with the province of Ontario. I was not the one who chose when to issue Strong Mayor Powers to 177 municipalities. Had those powers been granted to me as mayor previously, this would be very similar to the budget that would’ve been presented two or three years ago.”

Cleveland said the majority of the budget was drafted and passed through the mayor’s office as written by staff.

“For the first three years (of the term), council negotiated and debated and worked with staff to come together to find a common ground that met the service needs of our community while also rebuilding some of the damage that was done from previous terms where we did not raise the capital and tax rates enough, leaving us and our reserves in a state that needed to be addressed.”

Cleveland said only three things were modified by him from the budget prepared by staff, including putting just $350,000 into the town’s building maintenance reserve instead of the proposed $850,000 and maintaining the status quo for the Northam Industrial Park reserve rather than decrease that amount.

The third change was allocating the $1,113,000 from police reserves to bring down the CPS levy request.

The mayor said it still leaves $480,000 in the police reserves.

The mayor noted the police service would still be getting the full dollar amount requested, it just won’t all come in the form of an increase to the levy.

It has previously been reported the lofty police request was needed due to previous underfunding and the ask showed the true cost of policing on the tax levy, especially as costs have grown for CPS to meet requirements under the Community and Safety Policing Act. Around $700,000 in additional revenue from the service’s business centre was used last year, up to $2.8 from $2.1 million, to keep the increased tax levy number low at around 5%.

Now $2.8 million from the business centre is required again this year in the police budget or the difference would fall to taxpayers.

Using more than $1 million in added reserve funding this year won’t be a one-time fix either. That money will still need to be accounted for in future budgets, either through using more reserves or on the tax levy.

Councillor Adam Bureau, who is also chair of the police board, sought an amendment to include the full 20.5% be included on the levy. Without doing that, he said the ask could be even more next year while doing so the police request next year could come in around 5%.

Cobourg Police CAO Roger Ramkissoon and Chief Paul VandeGraaf took questions from council.

In the end, Bureau’s motion to amend failed in a recorded vote as only Deputy Mayor Nicole Beatty, who is also on the police board, joined him in support. Mayor Cleveland and Councillors Brian Darling, Aaron Burchat, Miriam Mutton and Randy Barber were opposed.

The mayor attempted to abstain despite Clerk Brent Larmer having outlined that the protocol is to vote yes or no, noting there are no abstentions and any would be considered a no. “I’m going to abstain,” the mayor decided anyway.

Burchat introduced a new motion for council to authorize only $600,000 be taken from the Cobourg Police Reserve Fund, which would increase the overall town levy to 4.52% from 2.70% at that point.

Bureau, Darling, Burchat, Mutton and Beatty voted in support while Cleveland and Barber were opposed.

Council also decided to take $500,000 from the Affordable Housing Reserve Fund. Beatty and Burchat opposed the amendment.

Another amendment, with input from staff, approved was that council amends the Long-Range Planning Budget Sheet to defer the 2026 special project – Heritage Conservation District Plan and Downtown CIP Incentive Program. Further that council defer the 2026 Recoveries special project Heritage Conservation District Plan. Further that council defer the Studies and Reviews – Dev Area Cobourg East and recovers Studies and Reviews – Dev Area Cobourg East and add the $233,255 for an Official Plan Review Special Project with $168,255 to be funded from the Planning Studies Reserve Account; and further that the original budgeting allocations be referred to the 2027 budgeting process.

The full video of the meeting with questions and deliberations is available at https://pub-cobourg.escribemeetings.com/Players/ISIStandAlonePlayer.aspx?Id=467a0d7d-8b4e-46b0-85cb-aae048a039e3

Council passed a motion to refer the final 2026 to Wednesday’s regular council meeting with a recommendation for a shortened budget approval timeframe for consideration.
Without shortening the 30-day window, Larmer said council would still have until Jan. 7 to make amendments. Instead, it could be passed Wednesday night if no other changes are coming.

Following council’s amendments, the mayor would still have up to 10 days to veto, though as previously stated, Cleveland said he has no plans to do that. If there was a mayor veto, council could override it but only with two-thirds majority support meaning five of seven council members.

Monday was the first time the full council was involved in budget deliberations as the mayor opted to go with a Community Led Task Force led by David Dexter to help guide the 2026 budget in addition to staff preparations as well.

It’s up to each Strong Mayor to decide how to approach the budget.

In Port Hope, Mayor Olena Hankivsky is holding presentations from staff and proposed recommendations council members in open forum in January before she presents her draft budget.

Darling wondered why after spending $20,000 on a consultant (Dexter) and having the task force that provided 42 recommendations that few were incorporated into the budget.

Cleveland said there’s good ideas, but the ideas should be presented by the elected officials

“My hope with that document and to your point the $20,000 spend, is to create an environment in the next election cycle where candidates who are looking to sit around this horseshoe for the next four years debate those conversations sir.”

The mayor said every year there is debate at budget time around closing Centennial Pool and the task force has recommended closing it, but that’s not happening at this time.

“I think that’s a good conversation during the election period of next term to start asking the candidates for both this seat and all of those seats where they stand on those 42 issues,” Cleveland said. “I think they outline things that need to change and we need to start hearing from our elected people where they sit on these key issues of financial accountability moving forward.”

Dexter, who was paid $20,000 to run the mayor’s task force, was one of two speakers and said he supported the mayor’s draft budget. He said the task force was a good representation of how the community is feeling and there’s a lot of financial frustration.

Beatty said she hoped for a presentation as part of the process and Dexter said he would be open to that.
Bureau agreed that a presentation would’ve been good and also that there are some good recommendations. He asked Dexter if he believes reserves are important to run a town or business.

“Reserves are important to deal with unforeseen items in the future, for capital asset lifecycle type situations as well. A healthy sustainability plan of a municipality has reserves,” Dexter said. “Now, Cobourg’s not one of the most healthiest financially municipalities and I’ll be very frank, their balance sheet is not good. The treasurer and administration are trying to improve it, but at what cost?”

He said the task force didn’t feel it was appropriate to put that on taxpayers for poor council decisions of the past.

“It’s a fine balance. It’s nice to have healthy reserves but large tax rate increases on the residents is not a way to do it. It’s got to be a gradual thing.”

Mutton asked about disclaimer at end of Dexter’s report that reads “David Dexter Consultant and the Town of Cobourg are not responsible for any loss or damage which might occur as a reliance or use of the contents in this report.”

She said not used to seeing that from a consultant in a report.

“When Mr. Dexter was retained, he was not retained as a professional accountant. He was retained as a member of the public in Cobourg who happened to in the past have a professional accounting background,” Cleveland said. “He was not retained as a chartered accountant and there for that reason, I’m just letting you know, that may take part of that because when Mr. Dexter and I were beginning the conversations about this, we very clearly, I wanted someone who was a member of the public of Cobourg, who is a ratepayer of Cobourg, to lead that and I wanted someone who had a professional background of more than 15 years.”

Dexter said he’s not a consultant by trade, but a resident with 30 years experience in the industry on the municipal finance side so realized there needed to be a disclaimer at the end.

The mayor asked Dexter if anyone on council asked for a presentation or reached out to have a meeting about the report. Dexter said no to both.

Cleveland said four members of council could have petitioned a meeting to be called at any time to discuss the budget task force.

“I would actually have to comment that we rely on your leadership Mr. Mayor,” Mutton said, noting she asked if she could be an observer at budget task force meetings and was told yes and then denied.

“There was no public access to the task force meetings including by members of council,” she said. “It was a first-time process, but definitely Mr. Mayor we look to your leadership with regards to all of council also. That’s my view.”

Cleveland said “well I hope so because here we are discussing the mayor’s budget so let’s hope we follow that leadership.”

Cleveland did allow that Mutton was correct, he did agree she could be an observer but that was out of place because it wasn’t his task force to run and didn’t check with them.

“When I brought that idea to members of the task force leadership, it was them that asked for the privacy to have a conversation away from both myself and all political and staff members so that they could build that trust and relationship amongst themselves,” Cleveland said.

Beatty agreed with Mutton, noting the mayor at any time could have created a special meeting to present the task force to council and community with context from the leadership of Dexter “rather than finding out about the task force information in a Facebook post followed up by an e-mail.”

Resident James Bisson was the other registered speaker and said it’s clear council members are busy positioning themselves for the next municipal election in October 2026.

He also referenced this being the first budget in Cobourg under Strong Mayor Powers.

“One of the things that I’ve noted is under Strong Mayor Powers I don’t remember seeing that the mayor has the power to be able to manipulate or dictate terms and conditions of a police services budget,” Bisson said. “I didn’t see that, I may have missed it, but as far as I’m concerned that is a whole other process. To my knowledge there’s a reason why a police services board exists and not police services under council and that’s to keep the two separate.”

Bisson reasoned, though, that someone has to address the concerns of the 20.5% police budget estimate increase.

“Obviously that is not palpable for the population, including myself as I pay taxes in this town,” he said.
Bisson encouraged all of council, including the mayor, to work collaboratively.

“I’m not seeing a whole lot of love in here. You guys are going at each other, positioning and jockeying for the next election, which is fair. Having said that, there’s an entire population of 20,000 people that depend on you working together and getting it done and that’s not what I’m seeing here.”

Bisson said he appreciates seeing a small increase in the levy.

“We’ve got enormous problems in regards to these reserves issues, there are big decisions that need to be made and I’m not seeing a whole lot of collaboration in addressing the concerns of the public which is what you are here to serve,” he said.

“I have tremendous respect for each and every one of these council members. Each and every one of you put your lives – personally, professionally, financially – aside to run for public office and you earned my respect right off the bat. However, the terms and conditions of your mandate is to serve us, the public, not your individual interests, not your political aspirations…and I would ask each and every one of you in this election year, especially during this time which is an important budget because it will lay the foundation for the next council’s decisions. Try to get along and do the right thing for the people of Cobourg.”