The Township of Emo is on its way towards municipal reform, and a municipal budget, said Doug Brown, interim Emo CAO.
The municipality has gone back to monthly inspections of workplaces and facilities, and is actively tackling several outstanding priorities, the first being the hiring of a new CAO following the resignation of Bridget Foster.
Brown also said that because money has to stay flowing, interim tax bills have been sent out.
“We’re starting to do the budgeting process. We haven’t met with the council yet. It’s taken a little bit longer than what I thought. I reviewed the state of their Asset Management Plan, and we’re trying to get in compliance with the regulation,” Brown said. “That’ll be part of the budgeting process because they need external support and expertise in asset management.”
Brown put in an application with the Heritage Fund for some upgrades at the arena, including the parking lot, lighting, new flooring, new dehumidifier, a handicap ramp to the ice and new doors.
Since the start of Brown’s role on Nov. 29, 2021, they have only hired Crystal Gray as the deputy treasurer. Gray was deputy treasurer in the Township of Chapple. Brown said he will not be involved in the process of hiring the new CAO, but council is looking at two options.
“They can do it internally with the council itself doing the hiring, or you can hire recruitment firms,” Brown said. “They have not made the decision yet, but they are looking at both options.”
Brown said there are limited manpower resources to address everything that needs to be done, adding that they are trying to get more staff in the office and run the municipality properly.
“When you lose key staff members in a small municipality, it takes time to get it back to normal,” he said. “Local government comes in different shapes and forms and smaller ones don’t have the resources that the larger ones have. In a small community, you’re a jack of all trades, but a master of none, but they still have to meet all the applicable regulations.”
Brown said this is difficult to achieve when a town lacks HR resources and has only 14 people under its employment. Adding that to the small tax base community that Emo is often leaves staff scrambling to make ends meet. He said Emo’s tax base is from residential properties more than commercial.
Brown gave an example of what the Town of Fort Frances gets in Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILTs), saying that Emo only has PILTs from the hospital beds.
“Where Fort Frances gets $50,000 in PILTS from the bridge, the only thing that they do PILTs is the hospital beds,” he explained. “And that’s very minimal. Their tax base is on the shoulders of the property owners, that is what makes it so hard.”
Even though it is an election year with the reputation of stagnant taxes, Brown said there is inflation, adding that people need to understand that everything goes up.
“People in the older generations want all the service, but they don’t want rate shock,” Brown said. “You only have limited financial resources to run a community.”
Even though Brown has 30 years of experience running big organizations and holding senior positions under his belt, he said this has been a learning experience for him.
“It’s a little bit more than what I thought I was getting myself into, I thought it’d be a lot easier,” he said. “It’s actually very hard to run small towns, a lot harder than I thought. It’s kind of been a good learning experience for me.”
