Comment
After denial
Perhaps the most encouraging words uttered during the three days of budget deliberations, a week and a bit ago, came from the County’s new CAO Marcia Wallace. Several times the County manager advised council against throwing more money into a hole, where it would surely be absorbed, and instead work with her to prepare a plan—or more precisely a series of plans aimed at putting the County on a financially and operationally sustainable foundation.
It was evident from her remarks that Wallace had read the Asset Management Plan prepared in 2014 for the municipality by the consulting firm KPMG. Further, she grasped its significance. The report can be found here.
Essentially, it concludes that the County’s infrastructure challenges are beyond our ability to fund on our own. Our infrastructure— roads, bridges, water plants, etc.—is too expansive, its condition too poor, the rate of decay too fast, our population too few and our ability to pay too limited.
It has been evident for a long time. It was documented in black and white six years ago. Yet successive councils have wallowed in denial.
From the report:
“…the magnitude of the financial requirement associated with its infrastructure precludes the County from addressing its needs without some form of grants. In the absence of capital grants, the County will be required to defer capital expenditures until such time as sufficient funding is available.”
KPMG points to a pair of impediments to funding the County’s crumbling infrastructure: a shrinking population and a disproportionate reliance on pension income. Both trends have worsened since 2014.
To be fair. Shire Hall didn’t create these challenges. We are living with the aftermath of the provincial restructuring of services that came after amalgamation. We inherited too many kilometres of roads, too many disparate water systems, too many bridges. And we have too few folks to pay for them.
On Danforth Road in Toronto, there might be 100 or more property owners per kilometre to fund the road running past their homes or businesses. On a kilometre of Danforth Road in Hillier, there may be three households, Maybe none. Just farm fields. We simply don’t have the population to fund the vast network of roads that criss-cross the County.
Similarly, we send garbage and recycling trucks down each of these roads several times every week. Yet we discourage folks from bringing their garbage to the transfer station. A garbage bag left by the curb costs $3. The same garbage bag delivered to the dump costs $5. There is an explanation for this—but it is not an especially good one, especially when roadside pick-up is likely unsustainable for every rural road in the County.
While this mess didn’t originate at Shire Hall, successive councils have failed to acknowledge it, never mind address it head-on. That may be changing.
A metaphor: We live in a 10,000 square foot mansion. Or more accurately, we inherited this massive home. It is beautiful, comfortable and sprawling. But the wear is beginning to become evident. Yet it remains a great place to live.
The problem is that we only earn a minimum wage—with no other reliable sources of income. Furthermore, we have little savings to speak of. Blinkered by denial we prepare plans each year telling ourselves that bit by bit we will get on top of this challenge. We poke around a little on the edges, but not nearly enough to change the trajectory of decay. So things get worse. Our house is falling apart faster than we can mend it.
The truth is that we can continue to live here for a while longer, perhaps decades, but we know, or ought to know, that these cracks are going to get wider, the pace of decay is accelerating, and, eventually, the roof is going to fall in. Perhaps the province will come along with buckets of infrastructure money to bail us out one day. But as their debt and spending levels spiral, Queen’s Park seems an unlikely saviour.
Yet some council members continue to wallow in denial. They suggest that the County is just one or two stiff tax increases away from putting our house on a longterm, sustainable footing. Others believe a squeezing a bit of efficiency from operations will do the trick. Both are wrong.
The fact is that the County can neither tax nor borrow enough money to do this. Our house is too big, our challenges too severe.
So what to do? First, the road ahead begins with an honest and truthful discussion between Shire Hall and constituents (rather than the same-old-same-old misdirection and pointless tinkering such as offered at the end of last week’s budget debate). Then, we must have a very difficult discussion about choices.
I don’t presume to know what that might look like, but let’s be clear, our house will be smaller. Less ornate. More modest.
Denial was always a poor foundation upon which to govern Prince Edward County. Replacing that foundation will be hard. But it’s long overdue.
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