County Budget Update - projects for 2012

Mar 22, 2012

County makes significant cuts to sustainability projects:

In a special budget meeting held on March 13, members of Frontenac County Council did not make any changes that will affect the county tax rate, which is now slated to go up by just under 1% after final numbers about provincial transfer payments for Fairmount Home and other cost shared programs have come in.

Council spent most of a 4½ hour meeting reviewing proposed sustainability projects for 2012 - projects that if approved would be funded from a $2 million pool of money from accumulated federal gas tax rebates that the county receives.

The debate resulted in considerable cuts to a number of single and ongoing multi-year projects budgeted for 2012 under the general heading of "Sustainability Projects", and an increase of $125,000 in the amount of gas tax money that will be allocated directly to the four Frontenac member townships.

Under the heading of “Small Scale Community Initiatives” in the draft budget, staff were looking for a proposed increase from the Gas Tax levy - from $50,000 in 2011 to $75,000 in 2012. The funds are used to support grass roots ad hoc community driven projects. Members of council had differing views of the value of supporting some of these projects, which in the past have included Hands on Harvest; the Frontenac Railway Heritage Railway Museum; the Medical Centre in Marysville and Wolfe Island; projects by various lake associations including the Eagle Lake Management Plan; septic re-inspections initiatives in the townships; the Sharbot Lake Farmers Market, to name a few.

South Frontenac Mayor Garry Davison weighed in first. “I think we need to focus on three, four or five key projects and accomplish those tasks and take them off the list before we put any more on, “ he said.

Frontenac Islands Mayor Dennis Doyle agreed.

“In business you always limit projects to the critical few and I think we need to pare down here.”

Anne Marie Young, manager of economic development, disagreed.

“This is an opportunity to build these small events and support the multiple groups of people that build capacity in the community. The fact that we can get out there face to face with these groups and help them to make these smaller scale projects happen, which otherwise might not happen, is something I'm very passionate about.”

Councilor John McDougall of Verona supported the $25,000 increase from last year.

“This is an area where we can make a strategic investment in townships in a very realistic way,” he said.

Warden Janet Gutowski said “These are community hands-on projects that are of value and that are making positive changes in the community and there are valuable spin offs that result.”

In the end county council reduced the funding from the proposed $75,000 back to $50,000.

Council made a number of further cuts to proposed funding for other projects.

Cuts included funds for a transportation study, which were reduced from $75,000 to $10,000. Similarly a proposed Signage Strategy and Implementation project was reduced from $60,000 to $35,000.

As well, a proposed transfer of $50,000 into a $170,000 strategic projects reserve fund was canceled, with council deciding to wait until they can come up with a proposed project before putting any more money into that particular reserve pot.

By consensus, a number of projects were totally eliminated from the 2012 budget, including $30,000 for an Available Land and Building Inventory, $10,000 for a Green Business Park Strategy, $30,000 for a Sustainable Tourism Strategy and $15,000 for a Milk Processing Plant business case.

Among all the cuts there was at least one new project added. Warden Gutowski proposed that $5,000 from the federal gas tax be added to a sustainability waste and landfill review budget study, and Council agreed.

All in all, gas tax allocations were cut by $195,000

K&P funding allocated to NF and the Islands

Council approved spending $260,000 on further development of the K & P Trail in South and Central Frontenac, an expenditure that is projected to be offset by $205,000 in trail related grants that the county will likely receive. Noting that the trail does not run in North Frontenac or Frontenac Islands, North Frontenac Mayor Bud Clayton proposed that $41,600 in gas tax funds should be made available for eco-tourism projects in North Frontenac, and similarly that $26,000 be made available for eco-tourism projects in Frontenac Islands. The dollar amounts relate to 16% of the $260,000 K&P project for North Frontenac and 10% for Frontenac Islands, since North Frontenac ratepayers pay 16% of county taxes and Frontenac Islands ratepayers pay 10%.

Gary Davison said he'd be prepared to support the resolution if the county pays receipts only after the projects are done rather than sending the money beforehand. This stipulation was included in the motion, which was carried.

Later in the meeting Councilor Clayton proposed a resolution to grant $25,000 to support the re-construction project at the Pine Meadow Nursing Home. The motion was not seconded by any other member of Council and was not debated.

With all of the changes, the amount of Federal gas tax money that is being allocated to sustainability projects in 2012, including ongoing multi-year projects and the eco-tourism money for North Frontenac and Frontenac Islands, totals just over $550,000.

Increased infrastructure allocation

Lastly, Councilor Clayton suggested increasing the allocation of county gas tax funds to the townships for local infrastructure projects from $510,000 to $817,000.

After some discussion members of council agreed to increase the allocation by $115,000 to $625,000.