The town’s request for $102,000 from the provincial Small Communities Fund was recently denied.
Erin financial analyst Larry Wheeler presented a report to councillors on Feb. 2 to bring them up to date with the process. The town was seeking two-thirds of the total cost of drilling and bringing online two production wells, but the expression of interest was denied.
The rejection letter states the province received 270 interest letters.
“Your project proposal was not selected to move forward primarily because other applicants with highly critical projects had more challenging economic conditions and fiscal situations,” the letter stated.
It went on to say the economic criteria includes household property assessment, median household income, average of net financial assets per household and average residential property taxes, user fees and service charges per household as a percentage of median household income.
“I kind of hoped they were taking turns giving the municipalities a chance at the money but Sharon’s (director of finance Sharon Marshall) done a bit of research. Minto’s just been accepted for the second time in a row, so it looks like we just have to keep trying,” said Wheeler.
Councillor John Brennan, serving as acting mayor due to Allan Alls’ absence, said, “It’s the usual letter back telling us were too wealthy, we don’t charge enough taxes, we don’t borrow enough money and therefore we don’t qualify for any grant.”
Councillor Matt Sammut said there’s a distortion of the numbers in the town.
“We know there’s farm credits out there, there’s conservation credits, there’s a lot of credits in our community, which distorts the real value of what the average person’s paying,” he said.
Sammut added he would like to see the town challenge the province on these numbers.
Marshall said the town has sent a letter to the province regarding the municipality’s numbers and the assessment used in awarding grants.
“The province chooses their own mechanism for deciding on the grants and how they calculate the numbers, and yes we’ve challenged them and we will continue,” she said.
