| Jan 30, 2013


Central Frontenac Council was given a guided tour through two of their largest departments last Thursday, January 14, and a session dedicated to the other departments was postponed because of a threat of freezing rain on Tuesday, January 29, setting up a meeting today, February 1.

While the Council did a lot of listening as Public Works Manager Mike Richardson took them through his budget, they did not make any changes. Richardson is asking Council for $420,000 for two new tandem trucks and $152,000 for a tractor/mower-brusher. In terms of road construction, the budget proposes to spend $45,000 on engineering and bridge studies; $80,000 paving Elm Tree Road between Bridge Street and Arden Road; $40,000 to patch a section of Road 38 near York Road; and $215,000 paving 4.5 kilometres of Oak Flats Road.

There is also $200,000 to cover the township's share of a large bridge and road-paving project on Wagarville Road. The township has applied for a $1.84 million grant to cover 90% of the cost of that project. If the grant does not come in the township will cut the roadwork out of the project, but the bridge replacement itself remains a top priority for the roads department.

Although the above-mentioned construction projects and equipment purchase requests are new, they are not necessarily the cause of the significant increase in the 2013 budget, because a similar amount was spent in 2012 on other road projects and equipment purchases.

The largest single cause of the budget shortfall facing Council is the fact that while the township ran an operating surplus of $311,000 in 2011, helping keep the 2012 budget in line, preliminary calculations show an operating deficit of between $90,000 and $140,000 in 2012. The 2013 budgeting process will have to accommodate that difficult reality.

Aside from that, the draft budget includes smaller, but significant increases in most of the departmental budgets, the largest being a $100,000 increase in the corporate services department budget. Policing costs are up by $40,000 to $767,000, something that Council must simply grin and bear.

So far, while Council has been listening and waiting, a number of the councilors have indicated they would like to see the budget reduced to an increase at or near the 2% inflation rate, which would require a decrease of a half a million dollars from the draft budget that is before them now. Still others are looking for a 0% increase.

The budget will be discussed at a meeting this afternoon at the Oso Hall in Sharbot Lake, and if it is not finalised, another meeting will have to be scheduled.

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