When Meaford’s council was presented with the first draft of the 2025 municipal budgets, they had anticipated holding three full days of discussions before establishing a final budget that could be approved during council’s December 9 meeting. It hasn’t worked out that way of course, and though it might be four months later than they had planned, council is set to give final approval to the 2025 budgets on April 7.
This has been a municipal budget season with many unexpected twists and turns, but council has taken those twists and turns in stride, and they have worked hard to get this budget put together once and for all.
This has been the longest, most exhausting budget process in the 16 years that I have covered Meaford’s council, but thankfully it appears to finally be over. Overall Meaford’s ratepayers have a pretty lean budget that will result in a roughly 5.16 percent blended rate increase for 2025.
A lean budget for one, is not a lean budget for all of course, and I fully recognize and acknowledge that with this or any municipal budget there can be many opinions along with many suggestions regarding the potential for improvement. As I have written many times over the years, any municipal budget can be drastically reduced if a council and residents are prepared to accept reductions in service levels or the elimination of some services all together.
Some members of council would like to have seen an even lower required rate increase, but given that the very first version of the 2025 budgets presented to council in November called for a whopping 36 percent increase had that budget been approved as presented, I think that after nearly four months and many meetings and discussions, council should be satisfied with the budget they will soon approve, which will cost the average ratepayer roughly $30 per month more in 2025.
One thing that I have found disappointing with this, and in fact with most budgets in recent years, has been the lack of public engagement despite the municipality calling upon residents to get involved, to offer their thoughts. Meaford’s Treasurer has also been frustrated with the lack of public engagement, but I think that is more a product of our times than anything else.
I recall budget meetings from 15 years ago that had to be held at the community centre in order to accommodate the 100 residents or more that would turn out to listen to the budget presentation and offer their thoughts. As the years have gone on, the crowds at municipal budget meetings have become smaller and smaller, with virtually nobody attending budget meetings over the past few years. Municipal budgets are always better documents when there is a healthy level of public participation.
But council’s work is done, and as it stands, council will vote to give final approval to the 2025 municipal budgets at their April 7 meeting, and then they can move on to the many issues facing council and this municipality.
As I wrote back in January, there are many important issues facing this municipality, from the pumped storage proposal to the massively expensive, but ultimately necessary expansion of our wastewater treatment plant, not to mention council’s desire to implement a regulatory system for short term accommodations in this municipality, a major undertaking itself. With these and other major issues like the continued increase in development proposals facing this municipality it will be important for council, and for the ratepayers that councillors represent, to fill the vacant CAO position as quickly as possible.
“Just the wastewater treatment plant expansion would be enough to keep councillors awake at night. With a current estimate of more than $120 million, it would be a financial burden on the municipality for decades to come,” I wrote in my January 30 editorial.
Councillor Steve Bartley even suggested earlier this year that he was on the verge of bringing forward a motion to halt all future development in the urban area of the municipality, as $120 million is simply too much for a small municipality to grapple with. Bartley said however that he is holding off on bringing forward such a motion after speaking with provincial leaders at the recent ROMA (Rural Ontario Municipal Association) conference earlier this month, who gave him some hope that assistance from upper levels of government could be on the way.
Whether any assistance from the province is actually on the way is unknown at this time, but council and municipal staff will certainly be exploring any potential for assistance with a project that is far too large for any small rural municipality to fund.
Another issue that constantly haunts council is the frequent complaints about pothole-filled roads. In spite of the fact that Meaford has spent more on road infrastructure rehabilitation that most other area municipalities in recent years, we still have many roads that frustrate motorists, many of whom vent on social media, though that venting would be more effective if it took place in the council chamber.
Roads and bridges have been a major focus of this and previous councils for more than a decade, and funding for these two important areas has increase dramatically over the past decade, but as we all know it is never enough, there are just never enough funds to make all of our roads perfect, and by extension make everyone happy. And while many seem to think that the grass is always greener somewhere else, the reality is that I see similar complaints from residents of many area municipalities, so Meafordites are not alone in their frustrations. But again, we have spent more on roads and bridges than most of our neighbours over the past decade.
2025 is the last full year of this term of council, with the next municipal election to be held on October 26 of 2026, so with the 2025 budget nearly out of the way, and a long list of council priorities that have yet to be achieved, the year to come looks to be a busy one indeed for our seven members of council.
