Tax levy increase up 2.1% - Frontenac County ratepayers benefit from lower levies social service costs

Jeff Green | Jan 13, 2021

Frontenac County and the City of Kingston were at loggerheads for over a year over increases in the bill that Frontenac County sends to Kingston for delivering paramedic services and operating Fairmount Home, the County owned long term care facility.

Kingston City Council did not appreciate that they have no control over costs that were rising at rates much higher than their budget target increases each year, leaving them less wiggle room when it came to funding their own priority programs.

Frontenac County politicians said that the cost increases were based, primarily, on the increasing demand for paramedic services in fast growing parts of the City, and provincially mandated long term care enhancements.

Lost in the back-and-forth debate was the fact that the City of Kingston also bills Frontenac County, for services it delivers to Frontenac County residents: Social Housing, Ontario Works, and childcare services.

The payment to the City of Kingston for those services comes to over $2 million each year for Frontenac County ratepayers, 18% of the entire Frontenac County levy to its ratepayers. The billing fluctuates each year, based on actual payouts and administration cost in preceding years.

As Frontenac County Council finalised their budget back in December, they learned that the billing for Ontario Works/Daycare Service is decreasing by about $175,000 this year, and the social housing billing is down by $75,000.

The $250,000 in savings, will benefit Frontenac County ratepayers,

When Frontenac County Council approved their draft budget in November of 2020, the increase in the levy to be paid by ratepayers was 5.51%.

But when Council met on December 16, 2020, to approve the final budget, the levy increase had shrunk to 2.1%.

And in terms of impact on residents, those costs will be mitigated by 1.37% in growth due to new construction in Frontenac County, for a net impact of under 1% for most homeowners.

The Frontenac County levy will be folded into the local township budgets, which are in various stages of development across the County.

South Frontenac is completing its budget later this week, and North and Central Frontenac will follow in February and March, respectively.

The draft township budget that will be presented to South Frontenac Council this week carries a 2.18% increase in township spending

Each township combines their own levy to ratepayers with the county levy, and a levy from the Ontario Ministry of Education,

All together South Frontenac ratepayers can expect an increase of between 1.5% and 2% in their final tax bill for 2021, because the education levy did not go up,

North and Central Frontenac ratepayers will have to wait and see how much their taxes will rise in 2021.