Provincial funding under OMPF announced for 2015

Jeff Green | Dec 10, 2014

The Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund was originally set up as a way to compensate small, rural townships for costs that were downloaded to them from the Province of Ontario in 1998.

Since then it has morphed into a means of helping those municipalities deal with the fact that they lack the property assessment that larger municipalities enjoy, but still have significant obligations to live up to.

The overall amount transferred through OMPF has been decreasing in recent years, but some municipalities have still seen increases.

In Frontenac County it has been a mixed bag. Central Frontenac Township will receive $1.66 million, an increase of $42,000 over 2014.

South Frontenac will receive $1.47 million, a marginal increase of $8,300.

The most disappointed township will likely be North Frontenac, which will receive $1.1 million, an increase of $29,000. However, since North Frontenac is facing an increase in policing costs of almost $140,000, the small increase in their OMPF funding is cold comfort indeed.

Frontenac County does not receive OMPF funding directly, but the province has taken back a number of the costs that were downloaded on the County in 1998, including some of the downloaded charges for the Ontario Disability Supports Program and some from Ontario Works.

The province calculates that this upload is valued at $3,300,000.