Duane Hicks
The 2015 budget for the Town of Fort Frances is shaping up to be the best one in many years with a possible surplus.
Budget work already has begun at the executive committee level, and Fort Frances CAO Mark McCaig said council and administration “are starting off from a pretty good place.”
“All indications are that we are going to start off in the black in our operational forecast,” he remarked.
“It’s never happened since I’ve been with the town.
“I think our operational budget, at this point, is the best one I’ve seen in my tenure,” McCaig added.
McCaig said a major factor is savings in the town’s OPP contract due to the change in the billing model across the province.
“That’s looking like it’s having a real positive effect on our operational budget,” he noted, adding the savings for 2015 is in excess of $200,000, with more to be phased in over five years.
The surplus could be used to put into reserves—something the town could not afford to do this year.
Last week, the divisional managers brought forth operational and capital budgets to their respective executive committees for review and questions.
Wendy Brunetta and June Caul, who were sworn in as councillors this past Monday, attended meetings to be part of the process right from the start, noted McCaig.
Those budgets now have been sent to treasurer Laurie Witherspoon, who is compiling them into a preliminary budget.
On Jan. 12, council is scheduled to receive the preliminary budget, featuring the operating and capital forecasts, at its Jan. 12 meeting.
Council then will meet on a bi-weekly basis to tackle the budget until it’s ready for final approval.
With council and administration off to a good start already, McCaig said it’s possible this year’s budget process won’t take long.
This would be a good thing as it would free up council and administration to focus on other matters.
Of course, much still could happen during the budget process, McCaig conceded, adding that if the mill is sold, for example, this would impact the budget.
As reported in the Daily Bulletin last Thursday, 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.
Given the positive status of the budget, 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.”
