Your City Budget

The City of Brantford recognizes that municipal budget decisions have a profound impact on the daily lives of residents. From garbage collection, to public transit, to the safety of our neighbourhoods, budgets sit at the heart of residents’ quality of life and the community’s future development. 

Your say on the City’s 2023 budget

Meaningful and effective public engagement improves the quality of decisions made, facilitates citizen understanding of issues and government processes, fosters respect for the views of others, and increases support, understanding and ownership of decisions made. 

To help inform the City’s 2023 Operating budget, the City partnered with researchers from Wilfrid Laurier University, Brantford Campus, to provide a research-informed review of the 2023 Budget Priorities Public Engagement Campaign. As a result, the 2023 budget engagement campaign included a “Let’s Talk Brantford” online survey and a revised random telephone survey of Brantford residents. Thanks to all who participate in this process. Key findings from this research are below and the fulsome report is available to review online. 

Key Findings

  • Over 54% of online respondents were satisfied with City programs and services, with respondents living in Ward 2 and more educated respondents being the most satisfied. A majority of phone respondents (68%) were satisfied with City programs and services, with respondents from Wards 2 and 4 being the most satisfied compared to other respondents.
  • A vast majority of respondents in both telephone (74%) and online (56%) samples perceived that they receive ‘very good’ or ‘fairly good’ value for their taxes, with older respondents and those living in Ward 2 perceiving the best value.
  • More than half of the telephone (58%) and half of the online (50%) samples supported increasing taxes slightly or significantly and respectively increasing or maintaining service levels.
  • Maintaining service levels was the most popular answer across key programming/service areas. Over half of online and phone respondents were in favour of increasing service levels for social assistance/homelessness, Brantford-Brant Paramedics and housing.
  • Online respondents from Ward 5 were much more supportive of increasing spending on social assistance & homelessness, which can be contrasted to respondents from Ward 1.
  • Over half of online respondents (52%) agreed to spend on infrastructure now. This is a 4-point drop from last year’s survey. About 46% of phone respondents advocated for spending on infrastructure now, with another 46% unsure and only 8% in favour of deferring maintenance.
  • The consensus across all discretionary spending areas was mostly positive in both the phone and online samples. The only exceptions being opposition towards the municipal golf course (53%) in the phone sample and opposition to Brantford Airport (59%) and the municipal golf course (74%) in the online sample.
  • At least half of online respondents were opposed to increasing or adding new user fees for Brantford Transit and Lift (63%), access to street parking (50%) and access to parks and recreation facilities (50%). The greatest opposition among phone respondents was increasing/new user fees for Brantford Transit and Lift (62%) and access to parks and recreation facilities (63%).
  • A vast majority of online respondents were supportive of increasing or adding new user fees for commercial use of roads (86%) and new development applications (83%). The greatest support among phone respondents was to increase or apply new user fees on new development applications (78%) and use of roads (66%).

2023 Capital Budget

2023 Operating Budget

Prior Year's Budget