5.52 per cent

Council passes operating budget with another steep increase

The amount of money tax payers will pay the municipality is on the rise again. Last week, after- two-and-ahalf days of deliberations, council passed its 2022 operating budget in the amount of $67,000,000. Of that, $43,865,209 will be funded by taxpayers, resulting in a 5.52 per cent increase on the tax bill.

LIBRARY BUDGET
here was a lot of talk surrounding the Prince Edward County Public Library submitted budget. It was an increase of nine per cent over last year, causing many councillors to question why there was such a rise in costs. “I understand they submit it. Do we just accept it or do we question why there is a nine per cent increase,” asked councillor Mike Harper. “What is the public getting for that?”

Director of Finance Amanda Carter explained that staff doesn’t typically push back on their budget, but includes it for council to have an open discussion. This answer caused councillor Andreas Bolik to question the process. “The explanation I just heard is the library sets their budget, sends it to us and we just vote it in. Are we obligated to give them what they ask?” he inquired.

Councillor Kate MacNaughton sits on the Library Board. She explained that it’s either an increase in budget or decrease of services. “We reviewed the budget in September. The entire increase is related to two items. Increases for salary and the second item is simply over the pandemic, there has been an increase in digital service reliance from the community. “The only solutions are we cut hours available to the public, or we cut services, or we cut staff. None of those are good options. None of those will provide the residents of PEC the services they expect.”

It was noted the Library Board will be making a presentation to council on February 8.

Pointing out the Library is the top spender of all the County’s agencies, councillor Bolik questioned why the Library’s report would be coming after budget deliberations are complete. He then put forward a motion to see the Library’s budget only increase by 2.5 per cent. “We’d all like to spend money on things that we think are important in our home life and in our community life. We will be asking other departments in this municipality to look for savings to figure out what really has to be done, what’s nice to be done and what is stuff we can live without for now. And I am just suggesting, I don’t see that out of the library,” he said.

This caused many councillors to exclaim that the Library is a service that residents rely on heavily, not only for books, but also for socializing and for mental health reasons. The motion to reduce the Library budget failed.

TOURISM MANAGEMENT
This year’s operating budget reflects the municipality’s move away from destination marketing spending and focuses more on tourism management as a whole. Staff had included a new Economic Development Officer (EDO) position in this year’s budget. “Not having an Economic Development Officer puts us at a disadvantage without comparators and our regional partners because this is a very common position in an organization,” said CAO Wallace.

Some councillors were in support of a new EDO, but believed there are many different branches of the County that need to work together cohesively. “I do support the idea of having an EDO. This is something that has been challenging for this council,” said Forrester. “Back in the day, we needed to create any sort of business that we could. A big focus was put on  tourism. Here we are 12 years later. Housing prices are through the roof. Most of our workforce is used up. We want to bring in younger people to create new jobs, but that is now nearly impossible because not too many young people can buy a house starting at $600,000 or $700,000,” he said.

Councillor Ernie Margetson asked whether this was really a full-time position, as at the moment there is no real plan or strategy. This led to a motion being put forward that will see an EDO hired in conjunction with the successful receipt of the Downtown Revitalization Grant. The motion passed.

OPERATIONS
Director of Operations Adam Goheen told council that after spending his first full year in the position, he has noticed that in many key areas, the level of funding is not matching with the level of service provided. “The 2022 proposed operations budget does serve to help in key areas to start to close that gap,” explained Goheen, who also told council there are many items out of his control, such as increased fuel and material costs.

Gravel was a point of contention in the budget. Goheen told council that there was $60,000 set aside for gravel, which would be used mostly for emergency situations on the County’s loose top roads.

Councillor Phil Prinzen noted that during the Capital Budget deliberations held late last year, council approved the purchase of a new road grader on the premise it could be used to bring some of the rural gravel roads to a higher standard.

“If I remember correctly from our capital budget, where council approved the third grader, a comment was made we are now going to see this decision reflected on our operating budget because we will be able to do more gravel topping. And now if I heard director Goheen correctly there is no more gravel in our operating budget. So my question goes back to what is this third grader going to be doing and why is there no more gravel in this?”

“There are two separate issues here,” said Goheen. “One is our gravel resurfacing program. That’s a different service than shouldering. There is plenty of money in the budget for those two items for materials and supplies, but we would need to inject some more funding for a more fulsome set of programs,” he said.

This led to councillor John Hirsch putting forward a motion to include $200,000 of additional funds for topper gravel. This would increase the tax levy 0.5 per cent. “I think we owe that to the folks who live on the gravel roads and who suffer because we really do need to reconstruct those roads,” said Hirsch.

The $200,000 to the loose top road resurfacing program would provide an extra 10.4 kilometres of loose top road resurfacing. To put this into perspective, the County has 160 kilometres of loose top roads.

The motion to include an additional $200,000 in the budget for gravel was voted on and passed.

The County’s organic waste program will see a staggering increase in 2022. The budget will increase from $85,000 to $240,000 this year. Goheen explained that the success of the program is causing the budget increase. “Amounts placed at the curb have doubled. The cost for the organics program is not offset in the same way that curbside waste is with bag tags,” he said.

Councillor Ernie Margetson said it was likely time for people to start composting at home. “I would like to phase out the organics. Even though there is a benefit overall perhaps, if those organics go back into bag tags, we will have a much more financially better position,” he said.

WATER AND WASTEWATER
Council passed the rate-supported operating budget for water and wastewater services in the amount of $10.4 million. Director Don Caza told council that the majority of the budget will go towards increased operating costs as new growth comes onto the system. “We have some interesting growth and development in the County. That will have the greatest impact on the water and wastewater budget. As facilities see more flow, we will see increases in costs,” said Caza.

For such a large amount of money, the water and wastewater budget didn’t garner much discussion.

PHYSICIAN RECRUITMENT
A motion was put forward to see $150,000 put towards physician recruitment in the County. Mayor Ferguson told council he thought the County was in dire need of attracting physicians, and that offering money wasn’t morally wrong as many neighbouring municipalities do the same. “Creating a level playing field across the province is not the domain of this council or the one that is succeeding us,” he said.
Councillor Bolik believed the money wasn’t the solution to attracting doctors to work in the County. “I don’t think any of us should be under the illusion that by throwing $150,000 at this problem it is going to go away,” he said. “There are plenty of doctors who I know personally who live in PEC. So they come here, they live here, but they don’t practice here. The question is why don’t these doctors want to practice in Picton. Have we talked to any of the doctors who are already living here to see what it would take for them to drive south instead of north. This might be a quicker solution instead of trying to bribe people to try and come here when our neighbours are also trying to bribe them. We are just going to up the ante.”

For the full story, click here.

OTHER ITEMS
Other items of note are $220,000 going into a road reserve coming from higher than expected Municipal Accommodation Tax funding. This will have no impact on the final tax levy. To see that rural roadsides are clean, $20,000 was added to the budget for roadside sweeping on rural roads to be determined at a later date. Also, $150,000 will be directed to affordable housing that was unspent from 2021.

Council decided to add $440,000 to the Capital Sustainability Reserve, which added one per cent to the final levy. At the end of 2021, there was just over $1 million left in the reserve, and Director Carter feared that by 2024 it would be in a deficit. “This particular reserve is utilized for all municipal capital outside of roads, fire, land ambulance and IT. It is drawn upon heavily. And should we experience any pricing issues with our projects that are currently being funded from the reserve, that deficit will continue to grow,” said Carter, who also mentioned the reserve hadn’t had any funds added to it since its creation in 2012.

After a motion by Councillor Janice Maynard, a 1.5 per cent levy for roads was also approved.

FINAL DISCUSSIONS
Councillor Bolik put forward a motion directing the CAO to find up to a 5 per cent savings in the presented budget. His hope was to see an estimated $2.4 million be put into a roads reserve for future spending. “We just voted on a proposal by councillor Maynard to increase taxes by 1.5 per cent. That’s 1.5 per cent of pain for our residents. For each and every tax payer in PEC.” said Bolik. “I’m suggesting that rather than just taking it all out of the hides of the taxpayer, that we start reallocating the money we do have and perhaps some things we stop doing.”

CAO Wallace told council that this budget had been in the works since last June, and has already been cut heavily, noting the first draft showed an eight per cent increase.

Many councillors were not in favour of the ask, including councillor Harper, who said that he thinks the way the municipality is structured is flawed, as it covers too large of an area, with too few taxpayers and too many assets. “Certainly, there is going to be a service level drop to meet councillor Bolik’s request. I am sure that service level drop will result in other residents rising up in arms over that,” said Harper.

Councillor Roberts agreed. “I trust the CAO and staff. I take her words literally. I would see this proposal as being very close to a vote of non confidence in her incredibly strong leadership.”

community and we will do whatever we are asked,” said Wallace. “I do not see this as a confidence vote on the CAO. The budget should never be about who is the head of the public service for the municipality. The budget is about where priorities should be. We have put our best budget together and we think that we have got the priorities right. If you vote for this [Bolik’s motion] you are saying you think the priorities should be more in roads than other things and you are willing to see reductions or changes in other lines of service,” she said.

The vote on the motion was called, and lost.

Councillors Prinzen and Nieman both loudly voiced their concerns regarding passing such a large increase onto County residents. Prinzen told his colleagues that he would like to see items removed. Nieman was quick to remind the group that the COVID-19 pandemic has been tough on a lot of people and a tax increase won’t help them get back on their feet. “We have right now a 5.52 per cent tax hike. When it came to us, it was 2.6 per cent,” said Nieman. “How did we get here? I agree that we need to build up the reserves, but do we really need to sweep the side of the road? Is that going to help us at all?”

Trying to sell the increase, councillor Janice Maynard said that the programs were in place to help those most in need. “First of all I want to remind people that we have a grant program for those that are in most need for relief. And anyone with an existing house–because MPAC has not done any assessments–you are not being assessed at a higher rate, so really the growth is only on new houses. Our assessed values are all the same as they were in 2020,” said Maynard, who tried to justify the increase by saying on her own house, her bill would only go up about $10 a month for the year.

As was the case for most of the deliberations, councillor Bolik voiced his distaste in the process. “So we spent two and a half days fiddling around with 2.5 per cent of our budget. That means 97.5 per cent of our budget we didn’t even examine in any depth. A lot of this is window dressing and we really haven’t changed anything in these two and a half days,” he said. “I am sure a lot of our constituents are going to be frustrated. Doubly so when they see their increased tax bill. Not a very effective 2 and a half days.”

A recorded vote was called. The motion passed with only councillors Nieman, Prinzen, Bolik and Margetson opposed to the increase.