Tiny councillors directed staff to tighten its belt and come back with a lower tax rate after the end of their initial marathon draft budget session.
"Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'm happy at 2 (%,)" Coun. Gibb Wishart said after Coun. Cindy Hastings had expressed her wish for a zero per cent blended tax rate. "Keep it simple, give staff a chance to do some things we haven't been able to do.
"I think we need to do some catching up on our roads and equipment," he added. "I am sympathetic from a political standpoint, people seem to think it's correct to come in at a zero per cent. I very much like the idea that if somebody is in dire straits and can come in and validate their position, we give them a break. By and large, I think our township is reasonably well healed and the tax coming in at 2% will give us the extra money that we need."
Mayor George Cornell could see both perspectives.
"I honestly can't say for sure what the actual economic impact has been with our residents," he said. "I was pleased where our staff had landed. What I might suggest is that we do have a number of unanswered questions so I would look to staff for sensitivity around zero and 2%."
Staff, in its report, had presented a 3% municipal tax rate, which they hoped would be blended down to 1.4%.
Various operating and capital budget items came to light as Haley Leblond, acting director of finance, presented the first draft budget to council Monday.
Along the way, council members intervened to ask for items to be sent to the "parking lot" for discussion.
Among the items was the expense for mayor and council professional development, which was a reduced cost this year due to COVID-19.
"(It) doesn't mean if we under-spend in one year we will spend less in the year following that," said Deputy Mayor Steffen Walma, talking about the $3,500 budgeted for each council member. "Cutting professional development in half doesn't represent future spending. As far as long term and attracting qualified individuals to council in 2022, I think it's a huge selling point that you have the ability to take professional courses and attend conferences."
Another item council wanted to further discuss involved $50,000 staff suggested be included in the budget to hire a human resources consultant.
"I don't know if it was necessarily a consultant we were looking at as compared to bringing HR in-house," said Walma. "What's the 2021 vision of our HR department?"
Coun. Tony Mintoff took it a bit further.
"I, for one, can't support anything that we use $50,000 for a consultant," he said. "I will be shocked if there isn't a (service review) recommendation that suggests this municipality couldn't benefit from working with another municipality in terms of cost sharing. I see Tay Township has recently recruited an HR manager, so I'm hoping there's an opportunity for us to piggyback on Tay and secure some of that person's time and share costs."
Council also wanted staff to review the planned 1% cost-of-living increase.
"I think for us to think about giving staff a salary increase in the face of the losses faced by the private sector would be insensitive," said Mintoff.
An additional item that all of council agreed to add to the budget was a request for $100,000 by the Town of Midland to be invested in its efforts for creating affordable housing in the area.
Another topic of discussion was the depleting the infrastructure reserve fund.
Under a seven-year plan, the township had been adding a percentage of the municipal tax levy to the reserve fund. The first year was 1% and the years to follow were to add on another percentage point. For 2021, the municipality would have been looking at a 7% share of the tax levy to go to the infrastructure fund.
And all of council was in agreement that taking funding from general reserves wasn't such a good idea.
"This is not the kind of thing that can happen on an ongoing basis," said Mintoff. "It's not a trend we can continue for very long before we find we no longer have any reserves."
Further budget deliberations will continue into the new year.
