Meaford Council is one step closer to finalizing the municipality’s budgets for 2022 after taking a dive into the draft budget documents during their January 17 meeting, looking for potential savings, and querying staff about a range of budget items before voting unanimously in favour of approving the draft budgets, including some budget enhancements.
In December, Council was presented with the draft budgets for 2022, and though recent COVID-19 protocols in Ontario prevented Council from meeting together over two full days to discuss the budgets, during the January 17 virtual meeting, members of Council engaged in significant discussions, particularly regarding a handful of proposed budget enhancements that were not included in the base draft budgets.
The eight proposed enhancements included funding for a CAO & Records Management Coordinator, a Customer Service Clerk, the municipal Community Well-being Program, Seasonal Facility Attendants, Seasonal Municipal Enforcement Officers, an additional vehicle for Bylaw Enforcement, South Georgian Bay Tourism program, and Winter Grooming for the Meaford section of the Georgian Trail.
After significant discussion, Council approved all of the budget enhancements except the proposal for winter grooming of Georgian Trail.
The enhancements approved added roughly $73,000 to the tax-supported budget, and increased the 2022 tax rate increase of roughly 0.5%, bringing the required increase to roughly 4.7 percent on the municipal portion, and an estimated blended rate increase of under 4.2 percent. The blended tax rate is the total rate increase including the County and school board.
Inflationary pressures also impact municipal budgets. In 2021, Ontario, along with the rest of Canada, saw significant inflation rates of more than four percent, and that trend is expected to continue in 2022. Mayor Barb Clumpus noted that Ontario’s most recent inflation numbers show an increase of five percent.
“I guess it’s a sobering thought that we’ve just heard here, that the Canada CPI is at 4.7 percent inflation, and the Ontario inflation rate is at 5 percent. When you put that into context, and granted, it’s the time of year, but when you put that into context of what we’ve been able to do today, with the budget, to come in with the enhancements that have been decided upon, approved, and by our calculation we have 4.19 (percent) with the blended rate,” said Mayor Clumpus. “So I think we need to keep that in perspective as well, it is under 5 (percent), inflation is rampant, we know that, and with the budget as presented has been very much approved and appreciated.”
Included in the draft base budget is a 1 percent cost of living adjustment for municipal staff, a minor reduction in OMPF funding, and the use of $130,000 from the Waste Management Reserve in order to offset costs in 2022 as was done in 2021.
Both water and wastewater services will require an increase in funding of roughly 8 percent each in 2022, however CAO Rob Armstrong advised Council that the increase for current users of the service will be less, thanks to increased growth in the municipality.
In the capital budget, $9.6 million is to be dedicated to infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges, and park facilities.
Councillor Steve Bartley told Council that after scouring the draft budgets he could not find any place for cuts aside from delaying some smaller projects that he said he knows need to be done.
“I’ve gone through it (the budgets) many times and I don’t see anything that’s cuttable,” said Bartley.
The budget schedule published by the municipality anticipates that the mandatory statutory public meeting will be held on Monday, January 31, with a target for final approval of the 2022 budgets at Council’s February 14 meeting.
All budget documents can be found by visiting meaford.ca/budget. All questions about the budget from Council and the public can be sent to budgets@Meaford.ca.
