Renfrew County council approved a levy of almost $49 million for 2021

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Pembroke – Renfrew County councillors dedicated a full day to the budget, opting to approve a levy of almost $49 million for 2021, up $1.6 million from the previous year.

“Our tax rate would move to $375.07 per 100,000 assessment from $366, up $9.07,” County Treasurer Jeff Foss told the assembled mayors and reeves during an all-day ZOOM budget workshop on Monday.

For a homeowner with a home valued at the median property value of $203,000, it means the county tax bill will be $761.39 in 2021, up $18.41 from 2020.

“It would be a buck-50 per month,” he said.

 He cautioned these numbers will be finalized in April when the tax rate is set but are accurate for budget purposes.

The levy, which is the amount received from county taxpayers, grew from $47,253,904 in 2020 to $48,945,594 in 2021. While this is the levy, the county is a $150 million dollar entity in total with about $150 million in gross expenditures. The figures discussed at the budget presentation dealt with the levy which is what is collected through property taxes. Property taxes also have the municipal (lower tier) and education component for the total bill.

In his presentation Mr. Foss said the county was working on a goal of a 2.5 per cent levy increase and this was made possible through various factors including weighted growth. However, earlier growth projections are not being realized, he cautioned.

“We are barely achieving a one per cent weighted CVA (current value assessment) growth,” he said. “It does not look to me like this is an anomaly.”

The county had originally projected having a 1.5 per cent CVA growth for the county budget purposes, he said.

CAO Paul Moreau also cautioned the new growth comes with new expenses, including more paramedics, more roadwork and more maintenance.

Admaston/Bromley Mayor Michael Donohue questioned what impact the growth seen in 2020 with people moving to the area through the “COVID out-migration” from the cities and the real estate boom would be.

“I would expect we are going to see more significant growth in the next five-to-six-year period,” he said.

However, Mr. Foss cautioned real estate value changes are not a source of new revenue.

“There are no brand-new dollars created because of reassessed or market change,” he said. “All that does is shift the burden.”

By contrast, new growth does have an impact, he said.

“If we have individuals moving out of the city and building homes in Renfrew County, that has a direct impact in each of our revenue streams (lower and upper tier municipalities),” he said.

Staff worked carefully to outlinr the impact of COVID-19 on both the county budget in 2020 and 2021. From the federal government the county received a total of $3.337 million, of which $1.4 was used in 2020, Mr. Foss noted. This means there is almost $2 million available in the Safe Start funding to go forward. The county is also continuing to pressure the provincial government on information on the provincial funding for specific programs, he added.

“Staff have not included any COVID-19 expense in the 2021 budget that would impact the municipal levy,” he said.

This does not mean that COVID has not been expensive for the county.

“We have a very large COVID expenditure,” he said. “It looks like we have expenses that will exceed $8 million in 2020 but we anticipate that will be directly covered either by direct subsidies in program departments or by the federal Safe Start funding. That is certainly good news for the ratepayers.”

Deep River Reeve Glenn Doncaster said the federal Safe Start funding was a direct response to appeals from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, on which he sits as a representative of the county.

Mayor Donohue said there has been ongoing discussion about the way the levy is performing in keeping up with the deficit once projected in terms of meeting targets set by the Asset Management Plan.

“How often is the review done on the score card of our Asset Management Plan?” he asked.

CAO Moreau said this is assessed on an annual basis, which means a re-working of the Asset Management Plan. Each department looks at it on an annual basis and submits it to the financial services department.

Petawawa Mayor Bob Sweet asked if County Road 51 (Petawawa Blvd.) was part of the 10-year asset management plan.

Mr. Moreau said the maintenance is budgeted for, but funding is not in place for major expansion.

“This is a major capital need for this road,” Mayor Sweet said, pointing out it needs to be included in the plan.

Mr. Foss presented a Long-Term Financial Plan Report Card, showing while the county is not meeting some targets, others are well within parameters. He said the growth is falling behind and the decision to lower the target of the county levy increase from three per cent to 2.5 per cent is also not meeting the target. The county is also not making as much money on interest from reserves as was anticipated. However, it is paying less interest on new debt than was anticipated. Both provincial and federal funding are surpassing expectations. He said the target of restricting percentage of the levy for operating expenses to 2.5 per cent is not only being met but surpassed. As well, the minimum capital reserve balance of $2 million is far exceeded at almost $7 million.

During the day-long session, councillors went over the budget and deliberated items including the pressures on the budget of $565,000. These included the Ontario Winter Games, additional winter control costs, and an additional commander for the paramedic services.  Mr. Foss said the decision of council was to reduce the transfer of $565,000 to the reserves. Additional costs to complete the Algonquin Trail will be discussed later with a separate report to county council.  

Mr. Foss said if the money had not been taken from reserves for the outstanding budget pressures, it would have meant a 3.7 per cent increase to the county levy, not a 2.5 per cent increase.

Responsible Budget

As the chair of Finance, Bonnechere Valley Mayor Jennifer Murphy said she was pleased not only with the budget workshop, but with the budget.

“I think that this budget is responsible, not only to our residents now, but for our long-term financial plan,” she said. “This 2.5 per cent increase means $9.07 per $100,000.”

As in each year, the county must deal with a variety of economic pressures when dealing with the budget. Mayor Murphy said each committee (Finance and Administration, Operations, Development and Property, Health and Social Services) and department had issues to deal with to bring back to the budget committee.

“One of them was the 21 per cent increase in insurance that we were alerted to on December 31st,” she noted. “This $100,000 budget pressure had to be mitigated through this budget.  We chose to reduce our council conference fees, council mileage and the warden’s banquet to fund this pressure.”

Mayor Murphy was pleased with the new way of doing the budget this year.

“This made for a much more streamlined budget day, but still allowed all of council to participate,” she said.

Instead of taking the entire budget to the budget workshop all at once, each committee made changes as they saw fit at the committee level, she explained. Mr. Foss said council made that decision in September to not have a total budget presentation but concentrate on the financial picture following each committee making the changes at the committee level. Staff were involved in working on the budget beginning in August and he was also involved in each committee with their deliberations on the budget.

The budget workshop was a long day via ZOOM for the mayors and reeves, but the chair of finance said it was a very productive one. She thanked all the councillors, as well as staff for being prepared for the marathon meeting.

“I am very proud that we were able to achieve our goals within one day,” she said.

Warden Debbie Robinson said it was important to acknowledge the hard work of Mr. Foss and his staff, as well as the committees to bring in this budget.

“Every one of the committees deserves public thanks because a lot of work went into this,” she said. “I’m very proud of all of our councillors for the input they provided.”