North Frontenac Council Feb. 11/13

Jeff Green | Feb 14, 2013

North Frontenac Service Delivery review

With more than a little bit of a push from the Province of Ontario, municipal councils throughout Ontario are completing service delivery reviews and asset management plans.

North Frontenac is the first local township to go through these exercises, and on Monday, February 11, North Frontenac Council was the first to receive reports from the auditors at KPMG about their operating costs and the capital costs they face over the next 10 years.

And in the North Frontenac case, the news was not as bad as some councilors thought it was going to be.

“This township is a well-run township in our estimation, given the municipalities we have looked at in recent years,” said Bruce Peever of KPMG after delivering his final report. “Of course you have issues that are not easy to deal with and there is a certain political element to financial decision-making and certain expectations about service levels to grapple with.”

“If we were doing poorly, would you tell us that?” asked Councilor Lonnie Watkins in response.

“We did talk to one municipality that had significant issues. We weren’t necessarily blunt but we certainly weren’t as flowery in our language,” said Peever.

One of the major features of the Services Review report were comparisons with 6 other municipalities of the same approximate size as North Frontenac that are located nearby. These included Central Frontenac and Addington Highlands.

North Frontenac has significantly higher administration costs than the others, but Bruce Peever said there is no uniformity to how different municipalities account for administration costs. He pointed to only a moderate potential for cost savings through re-organizing some job descriptions.

On the other hand, the potential for savings in the Fire Rescue service, Community Services (community halls, economic development, street lights etc.), roads, and waste management are all listed as “high”.

The report concludes that the current fire service, “specifically the wide range of rescue services and the number of fire halls – could be adjusted to provide for cost savings, recognising the associated reduction in service levels and potential for public relations implications.”

Similarly the report concludes that the “operation of five community halls represents an opportunity for consolidation to allow for the construction of a new municipal facility.”

In terms of roads, the report says that “current service levels exceed the minimum service level standards,” but it recognises any reduction in service brings with it “the potential for adverse response by residents”.

The waste management service levels were also flagged as being well higher than the minimum service level standard, and in that case Bruce Peever said the township may consider combined purchasing of engineering and monitoring services with other townships.

Overall, North Frontenac spends less than the average of the 6 comparator townships on waste (73%) and roads (68%).

In a section called “Opportunities For Savings” Peever note that one of the easiest things to do would be to cut Council down from 7 to 5 members (the mayor and deputy mayor, elected at large, and one representative from each of the 3 districts), which would save $38,000 per year.

Closing three halls (Harlowe, Snow Road and Clar/Mill), which is not quite as easy to do, would save about $37,000 in maintenance costs per year and save over $100,000 in capital costs that are going to be required at those three halls.

$80,000 per year could be saved by developing tiered response for winter road maintenance (i.e. cutting back on service to secondary gravel roads) and $15,000 per year could be saved by joint tendering with neighbouring municipalities for purchase of salt/sand/calcium.

Potential changes in fire service, administration, and waste management are noted, but the potential savings were not included in the report.

Because KPMG projects that North Frontenac will need to increase its spending on road and bridge capital improvements by over 3% from 2012 levels, it projects that operating costs need to come down by $161,000 in order to keep taxation at the same level as 2012.

After receiving the information from KPMG, Council moved into a discussion of the 2013 budget.