It’s raining

Town council certainly has the unenviable task of creating a budget that will have as minimal an impact as possible on local taxpayers.
Lost in all the talk of higher user fees and reduced services, however, is the option of dipping into reserves to ease the budgetary crunch. It may not be the most palatable choice but it’s one that shouldn’t be discounted outright.
Yes, council wisely agreed to forego $1 million of this year’s budget initially earmarked to go into reserves and instead use the money to cover the amount the town must repay Resolute Forest Products after the recent property tax reassessment agreement reached on its mill property here.
But with about $10 million currently sitting in reserves (of which around $6 million is for sewer and water), surely there’s room to tap into some of that.
Reserves are just that: reserves to call upon if and when a situation warrants it. Council rightly has been putting money away for a “rainy day”—and especially so over the past few years following a consultant’s report urging the town to sock away more funds to replace our aging infrastructure.
It’s obvious, however, that Fort Frances is facing an economic challenge of perhaps unprecedented proportions, with councillors themselves not mincing words in conveying the gravity of the crisis.
If this doesn’t constitute a “rainy day,” just what does?