Frontenac County Council - Apr. 14/11

Jeff Green | Apr 21, 2011

By Jeff Green

County budget to lower overall municipal tax increase

A series of changes to the draft Frontenac County budget has resulted in tax decreases for ratepayers, which will counter some of the tax increases that are coming from the local townships.

In addition, $410,000 in federal gas tax funds will be transferred to the townships, to be used on local projects.

The county budget will be finalized this week after council receives a report concerning a staff proposal for a new contract position at the county office. The budget originally included two new positions at the county office but one of them has already been cut by county council.

In contrast to a four-hour meeting on March 31, which did not yield many results, a subsequent meeting on April 13 put most of the contentious items to bed, and barring any last-minute hiccoughs on April 20, the county budget will come in with a decrease in the total amount to be levied to ratepayers in the order of 4%.

The county budget represents about 21% of municipal tax bills. Another 21% comes from education taxes, which have been kept at the same amount for a number of years, and township taxes represent about 58% of the tax bills.

In rough figures, the flat education tax and the decrease in the county levy will take up about half of the increase in local taxes in 2011.

For residents of South Frontenac, where the latest draft budget has set an increase at 5%, this would bring the 2011 tax increase to 2.5% on average. There was some unease among South Frontenac councillors about the depletion of reserve funds and cuts in roads projects that were necessary in order to get the township budget under a 5% increase. These may be revisited as the county levy has been decreased. South Frontenac is set to meet later this month to finalize their budget.

In Central Frontenac, where local taxes have been set for a 10% increase, the net increase will be about 5% on the average property, thanks to the county decrease.

And in North Frontenac, where the local increase continues to be north of 10% as the budget process winds down, an increase in excess of 5% will be the likely outcome of the 2011 budget process.

Much of the April 13 meeting was taken up by matters that did not affect the 2011 budget numbers.

Faced with a challenge from the previous meeting by North Frontenac Mayor Bud Clayton that the county-owned Fairmount Home is an “elite home”, the home’s administrator, Julie Shillington, presented an eight-page report on the home’s operations. The report placed the $10 million annual Fairmount Home budget in the context of other municipally run homes in the province.

The municipal contribution towards that cost is $2.19 million

According to Shillington's report, the average share of the costs that municipalities pay into the homes they own is about 18%, and the highest amount is 30%. “For 2011 we are requesting 21.9%, which is higher than the provincial average but is down from the 23% we received in 2009,” said Shillington.

One of the major factors that Fairmount faces in terms of costs are wages, which are higher than the provincial average in virtually all departments of the home. Part of the problem, Shillington pointed out, is that competition for nursing staff, of which there are almost 100 at Fairmount, comes from outside the long-term care sector, where wages are higher. “I’m confident in saying Fairmount is not the most expensive home in the province, but we are not the least. Our direction has been to move to that financial average. We are really trying to hold on to what we have,” Shillington said.

After Shillington completed her presentation, Bud Clayton said he had never intended to question the professionalism of the Fairmount Home staff.

“I'm not picking on Fairmount Home,” Clayton said, “it's just that North Frontenac ratepayers end up paying $120,000 as their share of Fairmount costs, and this money is going to a home they don't particularly want. That's it in a nutshell. In terms of long-term care, the issue is families, and distance, and Fairmount is located a long way from North Frontenac.”

“County council has set targets for Fairmount to reach and they have been reached for this year,” said Warden Gary Davison. “I am asking that council accept this budget.”

Council moved on to a small item that proved to be contentious, this time with the councillors from the Frontenac Islands questioning the proposed expenditure of $86,000 to support the Frontenac Transportation Service, which has no presence on the islands.

Transportation services, mainly for medical appointments, have been offered by Southern Frontenac Community Services and Northern Frontenac Community Services with county support for a number of years. As a condition of continued support the county has been pushing the two agencies to combine forces and establish a seamless service for mainland Frontenac County.

After a number of false starts, in March the county was informed that Frontenac Transportation Service will be available to all mainland residents of the county starting on May 1.

The service is requesting an increase in county funding this year to help with the transition. Instead of the $80,000 they have received in previous years, they were seeking $86,000.

Pointing out that the service does not operate in Frontenac Islands, Mayor Dennis Doyle wondered why his residents have to pay for it. “I can't agree with spending $86,000 on this,” he said.

Central Frontenac Mayor Janet Gutowski said, “We are wearing our county hats here. You are still part of the county. We are probably going to see continued demand for the services of this agency. It's going to be a positive time, and they anticipate asking for fewer dollars in the future, so I support this grant.”

Dennis Doyle proposed cutting the grant down to $80,000 but his motion did not receive enough support.

Gas tax grant

In a move that did not effect the county budget levy but could have implications for the activities of both the Economic Development and Sustainability Planning Departments of the County, $400,000 of the $735,000 in federal gas tax rebates that the county must spend this year will be divvied up among the local townships.

A county staff report had recommended that only $110,000 of that money should be handed out, and the rest be spent on a number of county-led projects.

Bud Clayton proposed that $600,000 be allocated to the townships, but Mayor Doyle said he thought that “might be a little too aggressive. Let's get there in a year or so, and pay for some of the projects that are already underway”.

Janet Gutowski said she ”has sympathy with the pressures on the local level, but the projects that are being proposed by staff are forward looking and we need to do some of that. I can't support this motion.”

Dennis Doyle's proposal was supported by county council, leaving the fate of a number of initiatives that were to be funded by gas tax dollars in doubt.