We're not surprised another politician has broken his election pledge so soon after being elected. But we are disappointed that Mayor Brian Bowman, only four months after being sworn into office, has already reneged on some of his key campaign promises.

Bowman told voters during last fall's civic election that he wasn't going to do "old-style politics." Well, he has. Old-style politics, at least to us, is when politicians tell voters one thing during an election campaign and then do something different once in office.

One of the central features of Bowman's election platform was to limit any increase in property taxes to the rate of inflation, estimated at about 2%. Bowman broke that promise Tuesday when he tabled a budget that included a property tax increase that will rise well beyond 2%.

The mill rate portion of property taxes is set to rise 2.3% while the frontage levy part of the bill is going up 16%. That's not what Brian Bowman promised voters last fall.

What Bowman promised was that he would bring in limited tax increases while finding savings in government, money that would be redirected to road repair. Specifically, he pledged to find $10-million a year in savings. Unfortunately, he broke that election pledge, too.

Bowman only found $6.5 million in so-called savings. Even some of those "savings" were not expenditure reductions at all, but rather revenue increases. For example, the "savings" includes a $1.7 million revenue increase in the city's assessment and taxation division.

Taxpayers were looking for real savings, including cutbacks to the city's bloated bureaucracy, not phantom savings.

We're also disappointed with the myriad of other new taxes and fees Bowman is proposing, none of which were part of his campaign platform. Bowman is proposing an annual .33% property tax increase beginning in 2016 and a five-cent bus fare increase to pay for Bus Rapid Transit. And he announced an additional $10-million draw from the sewer and water utility, which will result in an estimated $40-a-year increase to sewer and water rates in 2016.

None of those increases were part of Bowman's platform.

We are happy the budget has dedicated more money to help repair the city's crumbling roads. But there were other ways to find that money without gouging taxpayers, including controlling the city's soaring labour costs.

Unfortunately, Bowman chose the easy route.