County budget at 5.8% increase - final approval set for November 20

Jeff Green | Nov 06, 2024

Frontenac County Council listened as county senior staff from multiple departments presented 5 year business plans for a day and a half last week, poking and prodding occasionally.

Most of the presentations that councillors heard were updates on the work done by the various departments, and 5-year business plans. And, in a few cases, the presentations included proposals for new spending.

Then, when all the presentations were done, Council was left with this small number of proposals, with the option to pull them from the budget or leave them in.

It took them only 16 minutes to do that work, but they left one decision hanging.

The first thing the Council did was increase the budget, very slightly (from a 6.07% increase to a 6.09% increase).

They looked at one external request for funding that they received this year, $2,500 from the Food Policy Council of Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington, an independent organisation working on food security issues. This money was not already included in the draft budget.

“I want to support this,” said Warden Frances Smith (Central Frontenac). Food is important to all of our townships, and all of our residents. It represents 0.2% of our budget, and I would like us to support it.”

There were no other comments from other members of council, and Deputy Warden Ron Vandewal, who was chairing the meeting, told Treasurer Alex Lemieux to add it to the budget.

Everything else that they looked at was already included in the budget and their decision was to keep it, or pull it out and cut the budget increase by that amount.

They looked at two substantial requests from Frontenac Paramedic Services. First was a new 12 hour paramedic shift, to be stationed in Kingston, to deal with ongoing increases in demands for service. Frontenac Paramedic Services is funded by the City of Kingston, Frontenac County and the Province of Ontario, according to a formula. The cost to Frontenac County ratepayers for the county portion of a new 12 hour service in 2025 is $162,041 (a 1.26% budget increase).

The second request from paramedic services was to hire a new superintendent of performance standards position, to focus on training. The cost of this to Frontenac County ratepayers in 2025 would be $40,015 (a 0.321 per cent increase).

The decision Council took was to leave the new shift in the budget, but to pull the superintendent position out, cutting the projected budget increase to 5.78%.

They approved a request to fund a new document management system, at a cost of $30,000.

Council also approved making the occupational therapist position at Fairmount Home a full time position, a minor cost to county ratepayers ($17.286, 0.13%).

The final decision they had to make was whether to approve a proposal to hire a new Economic Development Officer.

The request was for a $43,000 incremental increase for 3 years, resulting in a cumulative $129,000 increase, once the position is fully funded in 2027. The increase represents a 0.34% increase in 2025, and a commitment to further similar increases in 2026 and 2027.

A similar request last year was rejected by Council, but in that case the position was to be fully funded in one year, leading to a 1% budget increase that Council was not comfortable with.

Warden Smith, North Frontenac Mayor Gerry Lichty, and Frontenac Islands Mayor Judy Greenwood-Speers all spoke in favour of the position. Lichty and Smith both pointed out that their small townships could not afford to pay for economic development staff on their own and this was a good way to get some help.

Lichty said that “a request for a part-time position is coming to our budget in North Frontenac, but I don't see it happening with everything we have to deal with this year.”

Councillor Ray Leonard from South Frontenac also supported the new hire. Councillor Fred Fowler from North Frontenac said that he would prefer to wait and see if some of the time spent by Richard Allen, the Economic Development Department manager, could be freed up by changing how the K&P trail is managed, before supporting a new hire

When it came to a vote, four hands went up in favour, leaving meeting chair Ron Vandewal with the deciding vote.

“It's down to me then,” he said, indicating the proposal should remain in the budget for now. “It still has to come back to County Council, but that's the direction.”

Vandewal had indicated earlier in the meeting that he did not oppose the position, but at this time, he said more.

“The total increase is now 5.78%. If anyone is comfortable with that number, they don't live in my household. But, I understand.”

The budget meeting was held as a “Committee of the Whole” meeting to allow for more free flowing debate, but it needs to be approved at a formal meeting of council

It will be presented on November 20 for approval at the monthly council meeting. At formal meetings of Council, the mayor of South Frontenac has two votes, in recognition of the population of the township relative to the other three, and ensuring that there will be no tie votes at the 8 member council table.