OMPF funding announced

Jeff Green | Dec 09, 2015

Local municipalities have received notification about funding for 2016 from the Province of Ontario under the Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund (OMPF). While the funding favors smaller, more rural municipalities, which are the ones that will be hardest hit by increases in the cost of policing services starting next year, the OMPF has not increased to any great extent.

North Frontenac Township, which will be paying over $145,000 more for OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) costs than they did in 2015, have seen their OMPF allocation go up by $77,100, to $1.183 million.

Central Frontenac will see an increase of $76,400, to $1.74 million.

Addington Highlands will see an increase of $47,000, to $1.65 million.

South Frontenac will see an increase of $17,700, to $1.49 million.

The provincial government set up a funding program after a series of costs were downloaded to municipal governments by the Province of Ontario over 15 years ago. These included policing costs, which until then had been fully funded in rural municipalities by the province. The revised version of the program, now called OMPF, is designed to compensate smaller municipalities for unspecified costs related to running a municipality.

The stated goal of the OMPF, according to the provincial government website, “is to help support areas with limited property assessment and recognize the challenges of northern and rural municipalities, while targeting funding to those with more challenging fiscal circumstances.”