Call it a friendship gone sour.
On Oct. 26, Guelph is taking Wellington County to arbitration over the way social services billing is done. And if the city wins, it will cost county taxpayers over $4-million – a 7% tax increase for the coming year.
At issue is who pays for what – and how – when it comes to funding the social services that are jointly administered by the two local governments.
City and county councillors alternate as chairman of the joint social services committee, which operates under a user pay agreement. That means since the majority of social services were handled in Guelph, the city paid the lion’s share of the costs.
County Warden Joanne Ross-Zuj said in an interview on Monday night, “We pay for what we use. That’s the way we’ve been doing business for the past 40 years.”
Social services include such things as Ontario Works, social housing, welfare and numerous other services. Ross-Zuj estimated that Guelph pays about 80% of the total costs compared to the county’s 20%.
Guelph, though, is now asking that each municipality pay its costs determined by property assessment, which would result in a 60:40 division of costs – and a huge increase for the county.
But Ross-Zuj feels such a division is unfair. She said Guelph officials seem to believe people unable to find work in rural areas go to the city and use services there, leaving the city to cover the costs. She said the model of rural citizens gravitating to the cities in tough times has not been valid since the 1800s, and people today want and expect services in their own communities. She wondered why someone from Mount Forest, for example, would want to go to Guelph for assistance.
Plus, she noted, Guelph has a very high ratio of commercial and industrial assessment to residential. That means the city has access to much higher taxes on the commercial and industrial assessment than the county has.
Further, she said, while farms might be assessed at a high value in Wellington County, farmers pay only 25% of that assessment as property taxes. The city has none paying at 25%.
Ross-Zuj said Guelph is going to cite the way other jurisdictions operate for social services, with assessment being the main way to divide costs between cities and rural areas. But, she said, a big difference is there is no joint tax base.
Guelph is one of the few remaining independent cities in Ontario. In other jurisdictions there is sharing of all taxes, such as in regional governments. Those were often forced by the province to prevent squabbles over jurisdiction and costs.
But add the costs, and a Guelph win is going to be very costly to the county tax base – and, ultimately, to citizens here.
“The county has always paid its bills,” Ross-Zuj said of services used by county residents. “We don’t think this move to use more tax dollars from our residents is fair.”
The warden acknowledged that in some ways, the friendship between the county and the city over the past few years has led to the current hostile approach by Guelph. In the past, a handshake or an informal agreement was enough for both councils.
The difficulties began when senior staff in the city moved on and new staff took their place. She said in the past, senior city officials simply told Guelph council that this amount was their share to pay, and the city paid it. She noted that even in today’s climate, the city council kept authorizing payments on agreements that had run out. But now, new senior staff are asking why the city is paying so much money when there is no formal agreement in place.
“There seemed to be a breakdown,” she said of relations with the city council. “There was a lot of good will between the county and the City of Guelph.”
She said “There was a clean-up to be done. We needed a corporate history up to date. All that good will we used to have through friendship – it’s just gone.”
Her goal now is to get all the agreements in place, in writing, and, “Be clear who pays what.”
Ross-Zuj said that is why she has been working hard over the past year to get all agreements in writing.
The problems reach into other areas besides social services, and are unresolved.
Ross-Zuj said the city owes the county about $2.4-million for its operation of the Wellington Terrace Home for the Aged. The city has stated it wants to run its own seniors’ home operation, but the province has denied it that right. But the city debt is still outstanding, and will not likely be solved until the current arbitration hearing is settled.
There are other disagreements. Erin has been lobbying for an ambulance, but Guelph has been unwilling to pay for one, although it recently agreed in a joint land ambulance committee meeting to consider better service in the next budget.
Ross-Zuj said the problem is Guelph sees the average times for ambulance waits to be very close to the provincial demands of about 14 minutes. It meets those demands – but in Erin it is as much as 23 minutes. Hence the disagreement.
Further to all of that, the county once willingly agreed to have Guelph manage land ambulance because the city asked for the responsibility, but later the county attempted, through the province, to take control of it in Wellington. The province denied that request, too.
There are areas where agreements are set. The provincial offences (court) costs are divided about 50:50, and Wellington and Guelph share Public Health costs with Dufferin County, and there is no squabble there.
But in affordable housing, there are differences. Guelph likes to partner with developers to provide social housing, while the county prefers to own and operate its housing. In fact, the 55 units being built in Fergus right now are a result of Guelph deciding against using its allotment. Now, Ross-Zuj said, the city and the county each have applied for affordable housing grants, and she said both appear to be excellent projects.
The county is hoping to build phase two of the units in Fergus.
The warden said the problem for Wellington is it shares social services responsibility with the city so it has to protect itself from social housing agreements Guelph has made with private partners.
She said her goal is to get the social services costs decided, and then the county will deal with the money owed to it by Guelph for the Wellington Terrace services.
Meanwhile, like two old friends each with a perceived grievance, everything is in limbo.
“They’re not talking to us at all,” Ross-Zuj said.
Guelph Mayor Karen Farbridge was unavailable when the Advertiser phoned for comment. A message was left for the city manager to call,. and that was not returned.
