“This Is Not A Wish-List Budget,” Says North Frontenac Treasurer

Craig Bakay | Feb 22, 2023

North Frontenac began its special budget Council meeting Feb. 16 looking at a 4.81 raise in tax dollars to be levied in 2023. That represents $6,847,969 or an additional $314,427. By the end of a rather long day, Council and staff had whittled that back to a 4.78 per cent increase and instructed staff to take another look and cut that back further, “if feasible.”

Treasurer Kelly Watkins told Council that to reduce the levy by 1 per cent would take cuts of $68,000.

“If you want to bring it down more, you’re getting into service reduction,” said CAO Corey Klatt. “We had more than $400,000 in inflationary increases (fuel costs, heat, hydro, wages, benefits, insurance, etc) but we’re only asking for an increase of $312,000 in taxes to be raised.”

“It will be a struggle, this is not a wish-list budget,” said Watkins.

“The higher we raise taxes, the less likely we’ll be able to attract development,” said Coun. Vern Hermer.

The meeting started out rather optimistically, with Watkins noting there has been a modest 0.89 per cent growth in assessment.

Council then began approving several requests, some of which have no levy implications since they’d be funded out of reserves such as $5,000 to go towards a “summer event” which would come out of a $33,000 economic development reserve fund.

Even so, there was opposition to this as Coun. Wayne Good said: “it’s not going to affect all of the taxpayers, only a few.”

Then there was a request for $5,000 to cover some expenses in the ongoing quest to recruit new doctors to the area.

Mayor Gerry Lichty suggested that Central Frontenac was only donating $3,000 for this but only managed to recruit Good to his way of thinking.

“I’m more in favour of this than I am for a fun day in the summer,” said Good.

Council also approved $5,600 for a Rural Frontenac Community Services Youth program and $25,000 for a permit planning system in conjunction with the County of Frontenac and featuring similar contributions from the other three member Townships.

“Maybe we should be looking at a contract planner again,” said Good, a sentiment echoed by Hermer.

But the rest of Council appeared swayed by Clerk/Planning Manager Tara Mieske’s explanation.

“This (system) should be more efficient,” Mieske said. “Plus there will be some additional advantages such as telling someone ‘you can have your addition but you’ll have to re-vegetate here.’”

“This may eliminate a lot of the minor things that come before the committee of adjustment,” said Coun. Fred Fowler.

One proposal that went absolutely nowhere was to create a private lane (funding) assistance program like South Frontenac offers. Und the South Frontenac program, the Township provides up to $7,000 to upgrade private lanes.

“We have about 200 private lanes and staff feels it’s something we can’t afford,” said Klatt.

“I have a problem spending money on private lanes when there are Township roads where we’ve turned down similar requests,” said Public Works Manager Darwyn Sproule.

“Not to mention it would be an administrative nightmare,” said Good.

Council also turned down Fowler’s request for more winter hours at the Mississippi Waste Site.

“We’re trying to decrease the budget, not add to it,” said Lichty.

When the conversation turned to potential revenue sources, there was a suggestion of hiring a summer student to check dog tags.

But Hermer shot that down, saying: “I don’t believe we’d recoup enough to justify hiring someone to count dogs.”

Council did cut the budget a bit when it deleted the $1,000 per councillor health benefit.

As the meeting wound down, staff agreed to take another look at it and meet back on March 3.

“We could cut that $5,000 for a party in the summer,” Good reiterated.

Klatt did float the idea of taking $25,000 out of the contingency reserve fund but “that would be a real gamble,” said Dep. Mayor John Inglis.

“We’re not OK with it (the budget), but at this point, pulling anything would be a reduction in service,” Inglis said.