Stephen Vance, Staff
Meaford council received good news at their May 2 meeting when Traci Smith of BDO & Company presented a report on the audited financial statements for 2015.
Council was told that the audit shows that municipality is in a “strong financial position”, with increased reserve fund balances, reduced debt, and minimal tax increases in recent years.
Compared to just five years ago, Meaford’s reserve fund balances increased from a dangerously low level in 2011, when the municipality had just $1.8 million in reserves, compared to nearly $7.8 million at the end of 2015. If municipal reserve fund balances are too low, a municipality can be handicapped when funds are needed for expensive infrastructure projects, forcing a municipality to borrow money rather than drawing from reserves. While Meaford has drastically increased its reserve fund balances over the past five years, council was advised that compared to other municipalities, Meaford’s reserve funds are still low.
“The Municipality of Meaford held reserves equivalent to 39.60% of 2015 (2014 – 37.80%) expenses or 59.03% of 2015 (2014 – 56.77%) own-purpose taxation. Using information from the Financial Information Return for all municipalities within Grey, Bruce, Dufferin, and Simcoe, the average reserve level was 53.73% of 2014 expenses or 107.9% of own-purpose taxation revenues,” Smith advised in her report.
In 2011, Meaford’s cash and investments were also very low, with the municipality having just $573,000 on hand, while at the end of last year, the municipal cash flow included $8.4 million in cash and investments.
As for debt, the municipality has continued to reduce its debt-load over the past few years. In 2012, Meaford was carrying more than $10.5 million, while at the end of 2015 that debt-load had been reduced to $8.2 million. In 2015 alone the municipality paid down more than $800,000 in debt.
Thanks in part to a mild winter and increased building permit revenue, the municipality once again finished the year off with a modest surplus of roughly $130,000 in 2015.
“The municipality did have a good year in terms of the budget,” Smith told council.
