Halifax councillors are questioning why the budget for the mayor’s office has risen in a tough financial year when the mayor himself has urged all departments to find cuts and do more with less.

Across Wednesday and Thursday, staff in Mayor Andy Fillmore’s office answered questions from councillors on the budget committee about their 2026-27 budget.

The office’s budget has increased about 16 per cent over last year, to hit about $1.1 million. Part of the $156,000 increase was for a new communications and digital co-ordinator position, bringing the office from six to seven people.

Deputy Mayor Patty Cuttell was among multiple councillors who questioned those optics.

“We’ve had so much discussion around the table, particularly led from the mayor’s office and the mayor himself, about this needing to be a year where we tighten our belts,” Cuttell said.

Coun. Sam Austin said there are two different messages coming from the mayor’s office.

“All the discussion about, ‘Well, we have to focus on core services and not do nice-to-haves.’ It’s really hard to kind of square that with growing the mayor’s office at the same time,” he said.

Halifax is facing a possible 10.9 per cent average residential property tax increase. So far this budget season, Fillmore has urged every department to find cuts, supported considering a hike to paid parking fees and transit fares, as well as cutting grants by 10 per cent, and examining the impact of a hiring freeze.

Fillmore’s chief of staff, Joanne Macrae, told the committee the office spent about $91,000 on a consultant to work alongside Halifax human resources on a reorganization for the mayor’s office.

She said that study showed a need for a seventh person in the office to handle the workload as the city’s population boomed. Macrae said the office gets about 100 emails a day, and the need has also grown to respond to residents via social media, as many residents are now sharing their concerns online.

Coun. Laura White and Austin asked whether staff in the mayor’s office help with personal communications from Fillmore that might not align with the rest of council, like his push for the Halifax Forum redevelopment to be stopped.

“How does that benefit taxpayers? Why is this something that we should be billing taxpayers for?” White said.

Macrae said multiple staff in the office work with Fillmore on his posts and communications, including the one last month about the Forum project.

“The communications role is to ensure that residents are receiving timely information, and it’s transparent and responsive. So I think having these roles helps do that,” Macrae said.

Macrae said former chief administrative officer Cathie O’Toole had approved the seventh position being hired last summer because there was enough room in the 2025-26 budget. Human resources staff said that took place, but was done with the requirement that “there would need to be a budget increase approved by council” this year.

The mayor’s office still represents 0.1 per cent of the overall city’s operating budget, Macrae said, a share that has remained consistent over the past decade.

Fillmore said his office is already “leading the charge” of fiscal responsibility. By adding one position, the office has only grown about 20 per cent over the past decade. He said that is far lower than the 53 per cent increase over the same time for the entire Halifax operating budget.

Fillmore says focus should be on larger items

“This is the kind of success we should be reinforcing, not penalizing,” Fillmore said.

Fillmore said his budget increase represents such a small percentage of the overall city budget, and “we need to be looking at the larger dollar items” to help bring the tax increase down.

But multiple councillors said the budget committee has been scrutinizing every department the same way. 

“I think this is important to look at every stone. Flip ’em over, can we save any money?” said Coun. Shawn Cleary.

Cuttell said all options are being considered.

“We’re looking at $40,000 here, cuts to arts funding there, snow shovelling — like we are really scraping the bottom of the barrel,” Cuttell said.

This is the first year the mayor’s office has become a standalone business unit like the municipal auditor general’s office, and some councillors said that was another reason to take a closer look at its expenses.

Last summer, Fillmore repeatedly said he had issues with Halifax’s governance system, including how his office reported to the chief administrative officer’s department in the Halifax organizational chart. 

O’Toole, CAO at the time, suggested the mayor’s office should become an independent office and “remove any possible friction or perception of friction between the CAO’s office and mayor’s office.”

Macrae said Thursday the mayor’s office never made an “explicit direct request to the CAO to be removed” from their business unit.

Coun. Becky Kent said she wanted to be clear that the change stemmed from Fillmore’s concerns, and it is not OK to “shove that back at the CAO at the time.”

“I think there was a lot of ugliness around all of that in general, and I think that’s why we’re here now with this … deep dive into all of the expenses,” Kent said.

A motion to have the removal of one full-time position from the mayor’s office added to the list of possible budget cuts passed 11-5. Fillmore, and councillors David Hendsbee, Trish Purdy, Billy Gillis, and John Young voted no.

Budget cuts — and additions — will be decided next month before the overall budget is passed in late March.

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