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Things not all "gloom and doom" in Penetanguishene

Town may restart previously deferred capital projects if finances continue to look good.
2020-05-13-Penetang-Council-May13
Carrie Robillard, director of finance/treasurer for the Town of Penetanguishene, shared with council the COVID-19 financial implications for the municipality. Mehreen Shahid/MidlandToday

Cost-containment efforts seem to be working to put Penetanguishene in a better position than expected.

Carrie Robillard, the town's director of finance/treasurer, shared an updated COVID-19 financial impact report with councillors at this week’s virtual council meeting.

The preliminary scenarios she presented indicated a 10% financial impact with 5% cost-containment efforts, 25% impact and 10% containment efforts and 50% impact with 15% containment efforts.

"I'm looking at those impacts on the annual budget," she said. "If all revenues are impacted by the pandemic and if the annual budget is impacted by any of the scenarios 10%, 25% or 50%, here's what we would be looking at in terms of projected revenue losses: they range from $127,000 to $636,000."

But with cost-containment efforts that the town has implemented the resulting savings are $324,000, according to Robillard.

"There are some unknown cost savings in terms of fuel, hydro, mileage and training that range from $61,000 to $184,000 as part of additional cost containment," she added.

"Overall, our second analysis of these implications, it puts us in a better forecast looking out four months to an estimated net deficit of $0 in two scenarios and up to $128,000 in scenario three. (In) the last preliminary overview I presented, those potential deficits ranged from about $33,000 to $300,000."

As for property tax payments, Robillard said the town has already received 83% of its total interim billing of about $8.2 million.

“We did look in detail today to see how much of the 2020 taxes have been paid to date and it is at 83 percent," she said. "There's seven percent not due yet, it's on a (pre-authorized payment) and 10 percent is unpaid.

“Historically, we're running around between six to seven percent in arrears, so I'm assuming the jump is those taking advantage of council's decision to waive interests and penalties."

Coun. Dan LaRose said he was glad to see the situation wasn't all "doom and gloom."

"Is there anything that the finance committee has looked at that they may require council to do (something)?" he asked. “If we do stay on this path of collecting most of our taxes, will we be taking our capital projects that we were going to defer and bring them back?"

Previously, council deferred a number of capital projects totalling about $284,000.

 CAO Jeff Lees said the capital projects could possibly make a comeback.

"While council did ratify the motion on April 22, the projects will still continue in the background," he said. "Once restrictions ease and staff gets a handle on what the province will allow, staff will revisit the decision council has made and there's certainly an opportunity to revisit those projects that council has pressed pause on."


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Mehreen Shahid

About the Author: Mehreen Shahid

Mehreen Shahid covers municipal issues in Cambridge
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