CF Council Cuts Budget, but Ratepayers Still Looking at 7.8 Per Cent Increase for Local Services, 6.2% Overall

Craig Bakay & Jeff Green | Feb 08, 2017

After the first round of budget deliberations for Central Frontenac Council, the magic number is sitting at a 6.2 per cent increase.

If the budget were to be finalised tomorrow, that would mean an additional $64 per $100,000 of assessed value to ratepayers.

“(But) we’re not done yet,” said Mayor Frances Smith. “If we can get it down to 4 per cent, that would be good.”

When Council began the all-day meeting on Monday (February 6), they were initially faced with an intractable fact; so-called negative growth. The total assessed value of all the properties in Central Frontenac for the purposes of the current tax year is $886,543,881, quite a chunk of change. But it is down from the total assessed value from a year earlier, by $7.5 million, or 0.8%. That means if the same tax rate that was used in 2016 were applied, tax revenue would be down by $62,000.

This issue is compounded by increases coming from the Frontenac County budget. The County increased its levy to the townships by about 4.2% this year. The impact of that increase over the entire county is buffered by assessment growth of 1%. However, here again since Central Frontenac saw negative growth of 0.8%, the impact of the county budget in Central Frontenac is a 5% increase.

When increased policing, hydro and staffing costs, in particular the move to a full time fire chief, members of Central Frontenac Council were looking at a 9% increase in the amount needed for their own purposes, and a total increase of just under 8% when the a 0% increase in the education rate and a 5% increase in the county rate is factored in.

After a day of work, Council cut $180,000 in spending from the budget, lowering the increase for local use to 7.8% and the overall increase to 6.2%.

Council isn’t done yet having scheduled another budget meeting to follow the Feb. 14 regular meeting, but two of the largest budgets — public works and fire — along with corporate services have already been dealt with. That leaves the planning, building and capital budgets still to be scrutinised.

(Editors note - Budgeting in Central Frontenac has been difficult over the years. When Central Frontenac is compared to that of its neighbours to the south and north, the reasons become clear. South Frontenac, with 4 times the population and healthy growth, benefits from a better economy of scale. North Frontenac, with an almost identical amount of property assessment as Central Frontenac, has a much higher proportion of seasonal residents than does Central Frontenac, a 4-1 ratio as compared to 1-1 ratio. Seasonal residents require service for 2-4 months a year instead of 12 months per year and are therefore cheaper to serve, and they tend to pay a lot of tax because many of them own waterfront properties.)