Frontenac County budget - 2% increase plus a few small extras.

Jeff Green | Oct 21, 2015

Frontenac County staff are preparing to bring forth a draft budget for Council's consideration next month, but in keeping with CAO Kelly Pender's penchant for a drama-free environment, Council can expect little in the way of surprises.

Staff are planning to keep increases to within a 1.25% window, and with an additional 0.65% to be slated for a reserve fund for long term capital replacement costs, the increase to the taxation will stay under 2%.

A number of small capital projects and a new Economic Development employee (to be hired on a three-year contract) were considered by Council last week in a Committee of the Whole meeting devoted to budget preparation. These costs are to be funded through added increases to the budget, through transfers from existing reserve funds, or grants.

These include small expenditures at Fairmount Home. These include a $5,400 cost to the County for a study aimed at establishing that the water supply to Fairmount Home is not influenced by groundwater. There is also a $12,800 cost to the county for a septic system study at Fairmount. Each of these costs are associated with potential savings in the near future or mitigation of major costs in the medium to long term.

Frontenac Paramedic Services Chief, Paul Charbonneau, proposed an increase in the staffing in the logistics department, from 1.6 persons to 2 full time people as well as a dedicated vehicle. The total cost of these changes is about $7,500 per year to the County. It will be offset by decreases in contracting costs as well as vehicle-related savings by not using ambulances to deliver supplies to stations within Kingston and Frontenac County.

Both Frontenac Paramedic Services and Fairmount Home each cost over $10 million per year to operate, and are funded by county ratepayers as well as City of Kingston ratepayers and provincial ministries.

In receiving these proposals, members of Frontenac County Council asked technical questions for the most part. They will be up for final approval when the budget is presented as a package later in the fall.

Proposals for changes in scope for the new combined department of Planning Services and Economic Development were more controversial, partly because the department's operations are entirely funded by county taxation.

As part of a new work plan for the economic development department, Department Head Joe Gallivan and Manager of Economic Development Anne Marie Young are proposing to create a new position, that of Economic Development co-ordinator.

In the work plan the position is described in the following way: “Through the work done on the Economic Development Charter, it was recommended that an Economic Development Coordinator position be created to focus directly on implementation of the Economic Action Plans. This position would act as the ‘point person’ for working with existing and potential businesses in the Frontenacs.”

The cost of the position is set at $210,000 over three years, to be funded using existing reserves, but the work plan includes a $30,000 allocation in 2016 to the “sustainability reserve”.

“I still don't see why this position is necessary,” said South Frontenac Mayor Ron Vandewal, who expressed his misgivings when the idea was first proposed a month ago. “The CFDC [Frontenac Community Futures Development Corporation] already works with businesses all the time.”

Anne Marie Young presented a chart that showed how expenditures in Economic Development in Frontenac County are lower, per capita, than its neighboring municipalities.

“Look at Prince Edward County; they spend eight times as much as we do, and have built up a tourism and recreation economy we can only dream about. And where did they come from? I was born there and I remember that it was only made up of scrub land and farms. We are taking baby steps here. But we need someone to do the outreach if I am going to work in the office getting all the grants that are available,” said Anne Marie Young in response.

Council voted to put the Economic Development Plan, including the new position, in the 2016 budget.

The decision will be subject to further scrutiny when the budget is presented to Council on November 12.