Big spenders

Council approves $110 million in capital spending for 2023

Anew term of council approved $85.1 million in capital spending last week—funds earmarked for repairs, rehabilitation, and reconstruction of things the County owns—assets, including roads, bridges, and buildings. Council also approved $25.1 million in capital spending for its waterworks utility—funded by users.

Despite approving big capital spending plans, Council does not yet know the impact these decisions—debt financing, reserve replenishment— will have on the tax levy. That won’t be known until later this month.

A big chunk of the capital budget—$64.9 million—is needed to build the replacement for the H.J. McFarland long-term care home. For more on this, click here.

Council approved nearly $11 million in road work, including phase 2 of the Picton Main Street reconstruction project for $5.9 million, a rural roads rehabilitation program for $3 million, and Picton Town Hill improvements at $807,318. Council also approved two bridge rehabilitations, one on Loyalist Parkway just west of Slaven Road at $1.8 million, and the other on Burr Road at $845,012.

Note that the annual $25.1 Roads Plan doesn’t ramp up until next year.

Council unanimously rejected an option to rehabilitate a portion of County Road 49 from the Skyway Bridge to Fish Lake Road. The $8 million project died before it made it into the budget, but Councillor Chris Braney managed to win support for a working group to plot and advocate for the rehabilitation of County Road 49. The Hillier councillor hopes the working group will meet with federal and ministry officials to encourage their participation in any rehabilitation of this concrete highway.

A plan to develop roadside parking ($412,000) and a crosswalk ($190,000) at Lake on the Mountain was also dropped from the spending plan. Councillor David Harrison argued the additions weren’t necessary and, if the province felt a crosswalk was needed between its parking lot and the lake attraction, it should fund it, not County taxpayers.

But Picton councillor Phil St-Jean felt safety trumped all other concerns, urging his colleagues to leave the money in the budget, at least until the findings of a traffic study centred on Lake On the Mountain were known.

“With regards to the property owners up there, I really don’t care at this point what their opinions are,” said St-Jean. “This is about us protecting the public; it’s not about protecting the interests of one property owner.”

A majority of council wasn’t persuaded, however, so the Lake of the Mountain items were dropped.

It took some time for Council to digest the proposed vehicle replacements, which totalled more than $4 million. Eventually, it approved all but three vehicles: a new pumper tanker for $650,000, a road grader costing $616,000, and a trail grader for the Millennium Trail at $30,000.

It approved a new pumper tanker and lightduty truck for the fire department, a new road sweeper, two dump truck with winter implements, a front-end loader as well as six new lightduty trucks for the roads department.

Council also directed staff to review the multiyear plan for replacing the fire fleet and bring a revised plan back to council in the second quarter of 2023.

Shire Hall’s IT department was approved for more than a half-million dollars in network hardware, servers and data centres and workstation replacement.

Waterworks spending received a cursory review by Council of the $25.1 million Shire Hall is looking to spend at this utility. The largest portion, $10.6 million, will be spent in Picton during the Main Street reconstruction project (Johnson Street to Spencer Street, near the Beer Store) to replace the underground works.

Wellington will see a new sewer main trunk line constructed under the Millennium Trail, estimated to cost $8.3 million (see related Comment here). Also planned is a new sewer line under Belleville Street at $2.1 million and a new bulk water station at the new water tower location for $48,814.

Yes, the recently rebuilt Belleville Street will be ripped up again to install a new sewer main.

The County’s proposed operating budget will be released by February 16. Council will begin deliberation on this budget on February 22. At the end of that process, we will learn the size of tax levy increase Shire Hall has in store.