Re – County budget

John Inglis | Feb 20, 2019

I want to congratulate Jeff Green for telling it like it is, regarding the County budget.  I was a County Councilor from 2010 until 2018, and first ran into this notion of subtracting the assessment increase from the levy increase, to get a palatable number for the media to report, a couple of years ago. Before that it was an unknown concept. I actually thought I was failing to understand some basic principle of budgeting, asked about it, and got the explanation detailed by Jeff, that I still can't figure out.  County spending in 2019 is going up in real dollars by 5.2%, and that's all the public really needs to know.

I really don't understand why senior management at the County of Frontenac feels they need to hide the real numbers. An increase each year in spending is defensible, given the fact of inflation, the fact of understaffing and increased care needs at Fairmount, and the fact that there's not enough in reserves to replace buildings.  Every year until about 2026, there will be a 1.75% increase in the County levy to build up that infrastructure fund. What's not so defensible may be pay increases for staff and council.  But then I've always been behind the times in understanding what professionals get paid these days.

John Inglis