Increased provincial infrastructure funding from the province may allow Centre Wellington to drop its two per cent bridge levy by 2022.
The 2% dedicated capital levy was created as a means to address bridge infrastructure requirements over the coming years. However, it now appears that levy may become a thing of the past.
On Oct. 3 Centre Wellington CAO Andy Goldie told councillors the new Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund (OCIF) provides sustainable infrastructure dollars that will allow the 2% capital levy to be reduced to 1% in 2021 and eliminated in 2022.
In July, the province announced the expansion of the OCIF to help build and repair more critical infrastructure in small, rural and northern municipalities. Of the $670 million promised over the next three years, more than $420 million will be formula-based funding and $250 million in top-up application funding. Municipalities will receive formula-based funding annually based on their economic conditions and infrastructure needs.
Centre Wellington’s OCIF funding numbers provided by Goldie are:
– $293,000 in 2016-16
– $560,277 in 2017;
– $793,377 in 2018; and
– $1,216,174 in 2019.
“We now have sustainable, reliable infrastructure money coming in each year,” Goldie said.
“This is great News. We have been fighting and lobbying for this for a long time.”
Goldie said the great News of the formula-based funding is that the township’s 2% capital levy “can be stopped altogether by 2022.”
