Duane Hicks
After being informed the town should be seeing some savings in its budget this year thanks to the provincial uploading of Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), members of council and administration will meet tomorrow with the Rainy River District Social Services Administration Board to find out the details.
During a special committee of the whole budget meeting yesterday, Mayor Roy Avis said he previously had received information stating the town’s municipal levy to the local DSSAB should be reduced by $376,000 in 2010 thanks to the uploading.
But after reviewing DSSAB’s draft budget for 2010, he said he wasn’t able to see where the town was realizing any savings.
Treasurer Laurie Witherspoon said she also reviewed the draft budget on Monday and didn’t see the reduction to the town’s levy, either, but did notice the municipal levy for social housing was increased by $351,000 (26 percent).
“It appears that the municipal share is being reallocated to housing. That’s just an assumption looking at it,” Witherspoon noted, adding the local DSSAB will be able to provide definitive answers tomorrow.
Following yesterday’s meeting, Mayor Avis explained that according to an Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund (OMPF) report the town had received, “there should be ODSP credit this year.”
“When we reviewed that . . . we were expecting our rates, the amount of money we fund [RRDSSAB], to go down,” he noted.
In other budget news, mayor and council went to work again cutting down the capital budget at yesterday’s committee of the whole meeting.
Some of the items cut include mobile command centre communications upgrades for the fire department ($15,000), surface treatments for Oakwood Road and Frog Creek Road ($44,877 and $28,377, respectively), and a half-ton for Public Works ($35,000).
Also cut was the reconstruction of Scott Street from Reid Avenue to Colonization Road East.
That project depends wholly on “Connecting Link” funding from the province which, if it comes through, likely will not be confirmed until after the 2010 budget is passed.
In addition to some ongoing projects, like Phase II of the biomass roads project or the Fort Frances Public Library and Technology Centre, which have to be completed this year, some of the items still on tap in the capital budget include:
•brush-cutting attachment for a backhoe ($45,000);
•snowblower attachment for a sidewalk machine ($9,000);
•second lift surface treatment for Idylwild Drive ($25,000);
•surface treatment for Fifth Street from Portage to Wright Avenue ($82,490);
•Portage Avenue underpass pumphouse foundation, storm sewer forcemain, project extras and railway pipe crossing ($400,000);
•infiltration and inflow study ($100,000);
•recycling transfer station modifications ($82,871);
•sewage treatment plant upgrades ($75,000);
•weight room floor replacement, pool dive tower replacement, front overhang repair and viewing area carpet replacement at the Sportsplex ($58,500);
•building repairs at Sister Kennedy Centre ($15,000);
•Sorting Gap fuel tank replacement ($36,000);
•Phase II of the Heritage Tourism project ($84,594);
•Townshend Theatre stage floor replacement ($25,000, of which half is to be paid by school board); and
•HVAC system replacement for the Civic Centre ($50,000).
Another item in the budget is $144,900 in repairs for Sunny Cove Camp, but Mayor Avis clarified the town has applied to the Ontario Trillium Foundation to do these repairs.
If the town doesn’t get the grant, then the town won’t do the repairs this year (these repairs are apart from the $17,000 water treatment system upgrades which must get done there).
Some other items on the “maybe list” include:
•an engineering study for traffic control lights at King’s Highway and Webster Avenue;
•breathing apparatus for the fire department (are they necessary this year?);
upgrades to the firefighter training facility at the airport (council may want to spend less than the requested $24,000);
replacing lamps on Scott Street (council wants to look into energy-efficient lighting); and
•perimeter fencing at the airport (waiting on federal funding).
On the operating side of the budget, the town currently is looking at a deficit of $246,612.
While this number may change down the road, currently it translates to a residential tax increase of about three percent (a one percent residential levy increase equals $80,817).
