{"id":142339,"date":"2023-02-27T17:53:10","date_gmt":"2023-02-27T22:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=142339"},"modified":"2023-02-27T17:53:10","modified_gmt":"2023-02-27T22:53:10","slug":"prince-edward-county-passes-operating-budget-for-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/prince-edward-county-passes-operating-budget-for-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince Edward County passes operating budget for 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Friday, Prince Edward County passed its 2023 tax-supported <a href=\"https:\/\/princeedwardcounty.civicweb.net\/FileStorage\/CBBE82421DC940F58B2AD8A526C6B0AF-2023%20Operating%20Budget%20Presentation%20-%20Detail%20(Feb%202.pdf\">Operating Budget<\/a> in a close vote of 8 to 6.<\/p>\n<p>Council approved the tax-supported budget for $71.6 million, a 5 per cent increase to the tax levy, and its rate-supported operating budget for $11.4 million.<\/p>\n<p>Under the tax supported stream, council authorized the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>$25.3 million for general government purposes including council costs, government administration costs, external agencies like public health\/libraries, and the Community Grant Program;<\/li>\n<li>$10.4 million for protection services including OPP police services, fire-rescue services, and by-law and regulatory administration\/enforcement;<\/li>\n<li>$11.7 million for transportation services including engineering costs, annual road maintenance,\u00a0 parking control, and the County Transit public bus services;<\/li>\n<li>$3.2 million for environmental services including waste, organics, and recycling collection;<\/li>\n<li>$3.6 million for health services including ambulance services contracted with Hastings County and maintaining pioneer cemeteries;<\/li>\n<li>$8.4 million for social-family services and affordable housing including the annual costs associated with maintaining the H. J. McFarland Memorial Home long-term care facility, as well as the Affordable Housing Corporation;<\/li>\n<li>$5 million for recreation and cultural services including yearly maintenance of community halls, centres, parks, museums, marinas, and harbors;<\/li>\n<li>$3.1 million for planning and development including costs associated with processing planning applications, as well as tourism management.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Around 33 per cent of the $71.6 million will be funded by non-tax revenues, while the rest will be funded by a roughly five per cent increase to the tax levy. County staff explained that inflation and supply chain issues (still being felt from COVID-19) are to blame for the increased external agency and vendor costs associated with meeting established municipal standards of service.<\/p>\n<p>Under the rate-supported stream, council approved $11.4 million worth of funding for water and wastewater operating expenditures, including the filling of the soon-to-be-complete Wellington Water Tower, and transfers to related capital reserves.<\/p>\n<p>On additions and subtractions to the budget during deliberations, council approved a $350,000 expanded Municipal Financial Relief Grant program (to be funded by year end reserve carryforward dollars) and authorized the hiring of an in-house municipal lawyer position because of the potential savings it would bring to the County\u2019s external legal spend.<\/p>\n<p>Council also authorized $340,000 worth of additional road shouldering and spot repair funds for the worst-off county roads. Two previously approved municipal debt financed projects were dropped by Council, including the <a href=\"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/prince-edward-county-passes-capital-budget-for-2023\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$43 million earmarked for the H.J. McFarland Memorial Home redevelopment<\/a>, due to the municipality withdrawing from the province\u2019s accelerated funding program because of finalized planning not being ready. County staff, along with many other municipalities, hope to pursue a hoped-for second round of provincial long-term care accelerated redevelopment funding. Council also dropped its debt-financed order for a wheel loader vehicle replacement for the tune of $308,000 (as well as rejected a motion to contribute $50,000 for repairing the older existing vehicle).<\/p>\n<p>Some tension manifested during the final hours of the budget deliberations as motions were attempted to limit the cost of living adjustment (COLA) for non-union municipal staff and councillors, which currently sits at 6.3 per cent based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI).<\/p>\n<p>Concerning non-union staff, Wellington Councillor Corey Engelsdorfer proposed a motion to set their COLA at 4 per cent (for a savings of $224,000). In response, Mayor Steve Ferguson had the following to say:<\/p>\n<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-142339-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Re-NU-Staff-COLA-Edited.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Re-NU-Staff-COLA-Edited.mp3\">https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Re-NU-Staff-COLA-Edited.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>Concerning council, Councillor Engelsdorfer proposed a motion to set COLA for the councillors at 3 per cent (for a savings of $15,000). Here is a sample of the debate from council that the motion caused:<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-142339-2\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Re-Council-COLA-Edited-2.mp3?_=2\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Re-Council-COLA-Edited-2.mp3\">https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Re-Council-COLA-Edited-2.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>Both motions narrowly failed, before council passed its operating budget with 8 out of 14 votes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Listen to the full story below:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Friday, Prince Edward County passed its 2023 tax-supported Operating Budget in a close vote of 8 to 6. Council approved the tax-supported budget for $71.6 million, a 5 per cent increase to the tax levy, and its rate-supported operating budget for $11.4 million. Under the tax supported stream, council authorized the following: $25.3 million&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":142348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,225],"tags":[23812,22255,9552,23813,22688,16081,22256,462,6552,5086,22689,22687,19478,23114,23809,23810,23811,23808,5166,23116,23807,16082,14241,16733,15364,23814],"radio":[13055],"origine":[267,269,13050],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142339"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142339"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142469,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142339\/revisions\/142469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142339"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=142339"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=142339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}