| Feb 23, 2012


Frontenac County sputters towards the budget finish line.

Frontenac County Council cut $20,000 from their 2012 budget during a 2½-hour budget meeting last Wednesday February 15.

The county has a $40 million annual budget, of which only $8 million comes from Frontenac County ratepayers. The Province of Ontario and the City of Kingston pay most of the costs for the two most expensive county-run programs, the Frontenac Land Ambulance Service and the Fairmount Home for the Aged.

Of the $20,000 that was cut from the budget last week, $15,000 came from the budget for county council committees, which was cut to $45,000 from the $60,000 that was proposed.

The other $5,000 in savings came from council members’ own pockets. They voted to cancel a 2.9% pay increase for themselves. Council members’ pay has been tied to the pay settlements for non-unionized county employees, who received a 2.9% increase this year.

“I think we need to send a message of restraint. We know what is happening right now at the provincial level. We know cuts to services and public sector jobs are coming. I think we should not be taking a pay increase,” said South Frontenac Mayor Gary Davison in proposing the cut.

Warden Janet Gutowski disagreed.

“It's hard enough to recruit people for this council, and although the money we receive is minimal for the hours that are required, I hate to see us fall even further behind, so I will not be supporting this motion,” she said.

The motion was carried in an 8-1 vote.

Proposals in the budget to turn two contract positions, a community planner and a communications/sustainability assistant, into full-time positions were both approved after considerable debate.

Mayor Bud Clayton from North Frontenac sought to defer a decision on both positions until after the council decides whether to accept proposals to fund sustainability projects with money from the federal gas tax rebate.

“I think that a lot of the work for these people comes from sustainability projects funded by the federal gas tax. That whole area may be phased out over the next few years and we should not be saddled with full-time employees when that happens. I think we should look at the sustainability budget before we make these positions full time,” he said.

Councilor John Inglis from North Frontenac agreed.

“If I vote for these positions I do so in ignorance. I have not seen an organizational chart.”

To this Warden Gutowski said, “My patience is growing a little short for this kind of argument. The information has been provided and it is up to members of council to get up to speed. We are no longer in our first year.”

Gary Davison then said, “I'm not sure that is accurate. When you are adding new positions you are adding a long-term cost. I think we should focus on three or four key areas for the sustainability plan, instead of just adding three or four new projects each year. We need to get some of those off the slate. I would also like to see us look at the whole organization here.”

While the communications position did get approval, Gary Davison made a motion that the community planner position be kept as a contract position for the next 18 months.

Frontenac Islands Mayor Dennis Doyle spoke against Davison’s motion.

“I'm not sure this is a big budget position,” Doyle said. “Frontenac Islands is now contracting its planning with the county, which pays for part of that salary, and I can add that the service has improved over what we had before and is saving us money. I believe some of the other townships are considering doing the same thing, so money will be coming in to the county to cover the cost of this position.”

“We already have one full-time planner. This is number 2,” replied Gary Davison, “and when we were brought the idea of the county doing planning for the townships, we were told there was already enough capacity to do it without hiring new people. I am definitely going to need to be convinced that this position is necessary.”

Davison's motion to extend the current contract by 18 months was supported by himself and the two councilors from North Frontenac, but was defeated in a 5-4 vote (as Mayor of South Frontenac, Davison has two votes).

A subsequent motion to affirm the full-time position was approved.

One other proposal may have a minor impact on taxation. Dennis Doyle proposed that $6,000 of the $7,000 budget for the Ontarians with Disabilities Committee be taken from reserves instead of charged as taxes. He did this because in 2011 only $1,000 of the $7,000 budget was spent and he thought the money could be carried over. That proposal was deferred until the end of the budget process.

Coming into the February 15 meeting, county taxes were slated to go up by 0.79% or $66,000. That increase will was cut to $46,000 because of the cuts that were made ($40,000 if the transfer from reserves for the Disabilities committee goes through)

A special budget meeting has been set for March 13, when the budget debate will likely be substantially if not entirely completed. County Council meets in regular session on March 20.

After the February 15 meeting, Dennis Doyle, who has been making most of the proposals for minor cuts, said that he thinks that county taxes could be brought to a 0% increase or perhaps a decrease of about 1%.

Based on the tenor of the debate thus far, it is likely that the most strenuous debate will be over an item that does not directly affect county taxes, the allocation of the federal gas tax funds that the county receives.

A number of projects are proposed, but as noted above at least a vocal minority of council members have indicated they would like to see less of those funds going to county projects, and more transferred to the townships themselves to be put towards infrastructure costs.

 

 

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