Comment
Paid in full
Abright spot has emerged on the landscape of broken roads, disintegrating buildings and melting clocks last week. It’s been clear for a long time that municipal assets are falling apart. Upkeep isn’t keeping up, and a reckoning was overdue.
A new leadership team at Shire Hall decided, earlier this year, that it could not put the day off any longer. Besides, it wasn’t their legacy. It was time for a serious talk with the elected decision makers. Something would have to give. Raise taxes. Sell things. Continuing to procrastinate until an emergency forced Council to act, wasn’t on the table. The reckoning was here. The new folks want a fresh start.
From the options on offer last week, Council chose—for now—the big, beautiful plan. It means a 46 per cent increase in property taxes—phased in over 10 years. Such was reported last week, and I won’t cover the same ground here.
But amid the images of decay and charts illustrating a funding gap growing wider each year, there was one thin shaft of light burning through the dark clouds. Waterworks.
There is no funding gap in County waterworks. Despite a complex network of six water systems, two wastewater systems and many kilometres of pipes snaking through urban neighbourhoods, the County’s waterworks utility generates a surplus each year. Waterworks customers are paying their way. No reckoning is required.
Indeed, waterworks generates about a quarter million more in funding each year than it needs to fund the system today, and to fund its renewal and replacement when things break down or reach the end of their useful life. The waterworks lifecycle funding machine is working. Today.
It happened more by accident than by shrewd planning. Shire Hall has ratcheted up water rates every year since 2022. Already among the highest in the province, water bills have risen by 10 per cent every year since. They will do so again in January. (Is it necessary?)
Former leadership did so as part of grand waterworks expansion plans in Wellington, in anticipation of a wave of home building. Building that never came. It piled up millions in debt to fund these ambitions. Water utility customers are paying for it now. These costs are already in the current rates. That’s what this chart says.
However, viewed from another perspective, the County’s waterworks utility has sufficient funding (utilizing existing water rates and a growing reserve) to sustainably maintain its pipes, pumps, and facilities. It has enough to expand Wellington’s water and wastewater plants. It has enough money to replace Picton’s water plant. Its wastewater plant. To expand its pipes. It can do all this without raising rates. It is in a solid financial position— unlike every other bit of infrastructure in the County.
It can, however—and may still—mess it up.
New leadership has not yet announced how it intends to expand water and wastewater plants in Wellington to facilitate growth. Notions of building a water pipeline from Wellington to Picton appear more fantasy than real these days. Yet zombie ideas remain living threats longer than one imagines.
But this week, Shire Hall’s senior leadership drew a bright line—a distinct and differentiating line—in a report to Council.
The report provides an assessment of remaining capacity in the waterworks system, as part of a broader exercise to understand what the utility is, what it can do and what it will do next. In doing so, it has defined important new principles to guide decision-making— particularly regarding development.
“The policy expresses that the County supports the phased expansion of its water or wastewater treatment plants in a manner that provides capacity based on prudent fiscal management, future development needs and anticipated consumption demand, not on the basis of long-term maximum theoretical demands.” My emphasis added.
Senior leadership has signalled an important new path—a departure from its predecessor’s track.
Gone are notions of building new infrastructure to “theoretical” expectations of growth. Gone are the charts predicting a waterworks expansion to serve 14,000 people in Wellington and (currently 2,100) and 36,500 in Picton (currently 5,800). Wishful thinking has been replaced by serious ideas of “prudent fiscal management’ and development that funds its own needs.
Waterworks customers have already paid in full to maintain its existing waterworks. Some will say we’ve been overcharged. But it is clear and undeniable that waterworks customers have fully paid their fair share, and more. Current waterworks funding ensures that the machines keep running smoothly for the foreseeable future.
Developers must absorb these principles laid out by Shire Hall. Existing ratepayers won’t underwrite their infrastructure. Growth must pay for growth. End of story.
Comments (0)