6% Increase The Starting Point For Frontenac County Budget Deliberations

Jeff Green | Oct 30, 2024

Frontenac County Council will not have an easy time trimming the 2025 budget this week, because there are only one or two spending items that they can cut, without challenging the budget direction taken by staff, direction that they have already approved.

The draft budget calls for a higher increase in the levy than the 2.99% increase from this year, but is lower than the 9% increase they approved for 2023..

The discrepancy between the two previous years is mostly due to inflationary pressures impacting the 2023 budget and some relief heading into 2024.

In his budget presentation, Frontenac County Finance Department Manager Alex Lemieux includes a “status quo” increase, the amount of extra money required from year to year to deliver the same level of service across all county departments.

For 2023, the 'status quo' increase in the budget was over 7%, and in 2024 it was -1.4%. Both of those figures were historic outliers for the county, which had previously seen status quo increases at about 2%, throughout the 2010s, until the globe economy was thrown off by COVID and its aftermath.

For 2025, the status quo increase has leveled out to some extent, at 2.79%. In addition, proposed service level increases would add another 2.38% increase to the budget, if they are all approved.

The largest of these is to fund part of the cost of a new 12 hour ambulance service in the City of Kingston. Most of the $800,000 cost for the service enhancement will be borne by City of Kingston ratepayers, but a significant amount, over $160,000, would come from Frontenac County taxation, representing a 1.26% increase in 2025 budget.

Another Frontenac Paramedic Service increase is a proposal to hire a new Superintendent of Performance Standards to focus on training, which would bump up the budget by 0.31%.

It is this second position which was questioned most heavily by members of council when Chief of Paramedic Services Marc Goudie appeared before Council on Tuesday (October 29) to make his budget presentation.

The other large service enhancement in the budget is a 0.34% ($43,000) budget increase in 2025, as well as committing to an identical increase in each of the 2026 and 2027 budget years.

This is essential the same proposal that was rejected last year when the entire budget increase was to be borne in the 2024, which would have raised the increase in taxation by an extra 1%

The current proposal would result in the creation of a full time economic development officer in 2026, to provide the department with the capacity to implement a tourism readiness initiative that they cannot pursue currently because of a lack of staffing.

A presentation to an advisory committee of council outlined was accepted, at the committee level, last month, but the real test will be at council this week.

While the impact on the 2025 budget would be less significant than the original proposal in 2024, council may be reluctant to bake an increase into their 2026 budget, and even more so for the 2027 budget, which will be overseen by a new council after the 2026 municipal elections.

Also impacting the budget is a proposed new capital levy of 1%, replacing a levy of 0.65% that had been in the budget for 10 years. This increase, which is slated to remain for another 10 years, is an attempt to address replacement costs of county assets.

A report earlier this summer outlined how the 0.65 annual increase has only resulted in the county falling further behind in dealing with identifiable future infrastructure costs, and 1% annual increases were recommended going forward.

To sum up, Council is faced with a 2.79% increase to maintain services as is, a further 2.38% for an additional management person, and a new shift at Frontenac Paramedic Services, an additional economic development officer next year, and an additional 1% for capital reserves to blunt future costs.

The grand total is a 6.07% increase for Frontenac County residents.

Council members are expected to complete budget deliberations on October 30. The budget will be adopted at either the November or December meetings of council.