The Council received the treasurer’s annual report.
Treasurer Sean Crozier reported that there was a 25,000 deficit in the water budget, and a 52,000 reserve in building, and there was a 69,000 surplus in Sewers.
“Because of COVID, interest rates went through the floor.” he said. “When COVID hit, the Bank of Canada dropped interest rates, and lowered the amount of our borrowing. SO that’s where that surplus comes from. That surplus will be transferred to reserves.”
Regarding tax collections, he also mentions that 34% of arrears came from the outstanding Tomminco mine issue, which “god willing” would be resolved by next year, with Ross making up 11% of arrears.
Cobden made up 11%, Westmeath 37% and Beachburg made up 6%.
Crozier said that 34 outstanding properties are going through sale for tax purposes, bringing down the total properties to 51.
“We’re making progress.” he said.
Water and Sewer
“There’s a little bit of a skew in here because of the timing of the bill.” he said. “This is the first year we switched the billing cycle.”
“There are 142 properties in arrears.” he said, saying that they were in the process of transferring the property over in tax, with 305 properties to transfer over.
“There is 36,000 outstanding at the end of the year. Because of COVID, there weren’t many arena user.” he said “I think I’ve done a good job of staying on top of that.”
He said that the Township received a grant for students for 3,912, and received 214,000 in a Safe Restart fund from the Province to cover expenses, such as the arena fees.
Councillor Nicholson asked if the current interest contained the cost to carry the debt.
Crozier said that they hadn’t had to borrow for cash-flow, and what they had was ‘pretty sufficient’.
Nicholson also asked about Current, and why it seemed so high at 700,000.
Crozier said that it was little concern, and that much of it was the ‘albatross’ of Tomminco Mine.
Mayor Moore asked “Is this going to be the last year for Tomminco?”
Crozier said “I really, really hope we can get it done this year.” saying that the properties were already transferred to the crown.
The mayor asked if it was a year-long prospect, which Crozier said it would be ‘at least a year’.
Crozier then moved onto special projects.
He said the original budget hat $20,000 for Energy Audits and $25,000 reserve for Arena Structural Reserve, which were used for Forester’s Falls.
He also said they’d undergone a Parks and Recreation Operational Review that showed they had gone $704 over budget.
They also produced signage for Haley’s Station.
There was a fuel card system, with stations placed at the landfill site, as well as Westmeath and Cobden.
He also said engineering projects began for Cameron/Crawford and Jeffrey/Olmstead assessments.
Flood management purchased 7,123.20 worth of sandbags, roughly around 20,000, meeting the ‘strategic focus of environment.”
He also outlined the completed Wastewater study, with pending studies of Astrolabe Design and Growth Study.
Mayor Moore asked if there were any ‘glitches’ with the fuel system. Crozier said there were some issues with old fuel in the tanks.
The Mayor also asked about the continuous studies, asking where they were standing for “study, study, study”.
“Studies serve a purpose.” CAO Trembley said. “In our case, we’ve done a lot of what we’ve needed to do.”
He said the studies this year was mostly focused on the water system, and that they needed more knowledge of “master servicing” in Beachburg and Cobden.
“If we don’t have that base data, we can’t move forward.”
“I was never a big fan of studies. I had originally run a platform of better planning.” Councillor Olmstead said. “I’d hate to see where we’d be right now with the pandemic, and the explosion of growth in our region, if we didn’t have an idea of what we want our region to be.”
Crozier then continued with infrastructure, pointing out Powers Road, which he said was covered by ‘OCI budget’.
He also talked about Wren/Morrison Drive resurfacing, which was not in the original budget and was funded from the Road Purposes Reserve with $44,553.10”
He also cited $61,000 for a Landfill truck, and a Fire half-ton truck for $44,000, and bunker gear for firefighters coming in under its budget of $60,000.”
He said they’d also build a fire cistern, as well as purchased other equipment such as a slip-in water tank, a mower, an excavator, and a Massey Ferguson tractor.
The talked about the Lacroix Bay Road double-surface treatment in response to the 2019 flood.
The Westmeath emergency septic repair still needed to be paid for, costing roughly $75,000.
The Cobden Band Stand and eleven benches, as well as work on the Cobden Boat Launch for 76,000.
Of particular note was the upgrades to the Council Chambers for COVID-19, costing 63,000 from the Corporate Safe Restart funds.
After a short break, Crozier moved onto debentures, which in total were $4.7 million financed by debt.
He said total reserve funds were about $2.4 million.
He said they had 0.56 growth in assessment, due to heavy fluctuation in non-residential properties.
“As much as we are growing, there is a lot of assessment that goes from commercial into residential. Ther’s a lot of growth of in the farm class.” he said. “It’s moved from residential into farm, so it’s worth about a quarter of what it was. There are two sides of that coin.”
Councillor Olmstead asked if a farm application was something like “a farmer buying another farm.”
Crozier clarified it could be that, or could also be a farm that now qualified under Agricorp.
Councillor Jackson asked “We want to be sure if we apply for these grants, that we have room. I’m looking forward to a five or ten year plan for what we’re applying for.” she said. “In my opinion over the years, there have been a lot of grants allowed taht have not been our first priority, while another municipality where the grant IS their first priority does not receive the grant, and another that applied willy-nilly got the grant.”
“I would hope that we only apply for grants that we need.”
Councillor Nicholson asked what our indicator was for ‘tapping out’ for a single building inspector.
“I don’t know if I have the answer to that.”
“The department costs about over 15,000 over the year.” CAO Trembley said. “That has been mostly stagnant. The fees and number of permits have doubled in that time. We’re trying to find comparators depending on the number of permits and the number of single houses.”
“We’ll see if there’s a COVID bump, or true growth ,and I think it’s a mix of both.” he said. “We’re going to have to be proactive in how we figured that out.”
Councillor Mackay complained about the Tomminco mine. “The Ontario Government kind of dumped it on us.” he said.
Councillor Olmstead said there were huge delays in builders and inspectors, and that he felt the consumer shouldn’t have to carry that extra cost from more inspections and travel.
Councillor Jackson said that building permits lasted long enough that there “shouldn’t be any extra inspections.”
