On Monday, as Mississauga council began its line-by-line review of the 2026 budget, it also heard what residents think of the city. The headline number is a comfortable one: 76 per cent of residents are satisfied with city services, about the same as two years ago.

Councillors should not stop reading there.

The number that moved

The 2025 Resident Experience Survey, done for the city by Forum Research with 1,002 adults between Oct. 6 and Nov. 6, found that 49 per cent of residents feel they get good value for their municipal tax dollars. In 2023, it was 55 per cent. The report says Mississauga now trails comparable Canadian cities on this measure, and it links the drop to a rise in the share of residents who name taxes as the top issue facing the city, from six per cent to 11.

That is not a crisis. It is a signal, and it arrives in a budget year when the city is proposing a modest increase and asking residents for patience on non-essential projects.

Residents want to understand

The more useful finding may be this: only 36 per cent of residents say they are familiar with how the city spends its budget, yet 53 per cent say taxes and the budget are the subject they most want to hear about. That is well above the 29 to 36 per cent recorded in surveys from 2017 to 2023.

Put those together and the value problem looks partly like an explanation problem. People are paying attention, but many do not feel they have a clear picture. The city has budget explainers online and holds open Budget Committee meetings, but the numbers suggest those tools are not reaching enough people.

Read the regional question carefully

The survey also reports that 81 per cent of residents want Peel's cost-sharing formula changed to reflect population rather than property value. That aligns with the city's long-standing position. But the question told respondents that Mississauga pays millions of dollars more under the current formula before asking for their view. The result may well reflect real sentiment, but it should not be presented as a neutral measure of it.

Methods matter in other ways, too. The survey moved from telephone to online panels this year, and the report itself says the sample cannot be treated as truly random. Councillors were right to ask on Monday that future surveys use more channels to reach groups such as transit riders and seniors.

What council can do now

Residents are not asking for the impossible. Three in five told the survey they would accept higher taxes or user fees to keep or improve services, and their top budget priorities were affordable taxes and fees, well-maintained infrastructure and essential services such as housing and transit.

Amendments to the budget can be made until the Feb. 4 special council meeting. Between now and then, council can do more than trim. It can explain, plainly and in places people actually look, what each dollar buys. Satisfaction is earned through services. Confidence in value is earned through clear answers.