Duane Hicks
The Town of Fort Frances will be getting $85,900 less in Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund (OMPF) dollars in 2015 but is realizing more benefits from provincial uploads.
The province reported yesterday that Fort Frances’ combined benefit of the 2015 OMPF and provincial uploads totals $3,814,100, which is the equivalent of 42 percent of the town’s municipal property tax revenue.
It includes $2,983,600 through the OMPF and an $830,500 benefit resulting from the provincial uploads.
By contrast, the town’s combined benefit for 2014 included $3,069,500 through the OMPF but only a $617,900 benefit resulting from provincial uploads.
As such, the 2015 combined benefit exceeds this year’s by $126,700.
Fort Frances CAO Mark McCaig said the decrease in OMPF dollars could have been worse.
“It’s not as big of a decrease as we were anticipating,” he admitted.
“We were contemplating it could have been quite a bit more than that, like as much as double,” McCaig noted.
“In some respects it’s not good, but we were kind of
anticipating it to be worse.”
The impact to the 2015 operating budget will be lessened by other positive factors, such as the savings the town will be realizing due to the restructuring of the OPP billing model.
The OMPF is the province’s main transfer payment to municipalities.
In 2015, the province will provide a total of $515 million in unconditional funding to 388 municipalities through the OMPF.
This funding, combined with the municipal benefit resulting from the provincial uploads, will total over $2.2 billion in 2015—more than three-and-a-half times the level of funding provided in 2004.
In 2012, the government announced a review of the OMPF and the phase-down of the program to $500 million by 2016.
The phase-down was part of the 2008 Provincial-Municipal Fiscal and Service Delivery Review agreement to upload social assistance benefit programs, as well as court security and prisoner transportation costs, off the property tax base.
Despite the adjustment to the OMPF, the province has said the overall support provided to municipalities will continue to increase, with the provincial uploads more than offsetting the reduction to the program.
