Councillors voted on Tuesday to approve Mapleton’s portion of the 2011 levy from the Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA), but they have requested a clarification on one matter.
This year Mapleton Township will pay $78,285 – an increase of 2.4% over the 2010 township levy of $76,483. But councillor Jim Curry requested GRCA officials clear up a discrepancy in the figure for its “self-generated” revenues.
At a previous meeting that figure was listed as $12,909,572 last year and $12,487,225 in 2011 – a decrease of about 3.2%.
But on Tuesday a presentation from the GRCA stated those numbers were $11,569,000 in 2010 and $12,102,000 this year – an increase of 4.6%.
Keith Murch, the GRCA’s assistant CAO, said he would have to check with the authority’s director of finance to be sure, but he explained some projects not completed last year were carried over to this year’s budget, and thus so too were the revenues for those projects.
At the previous meeting Curry had lamented that both provincial grants and the GRCA’s self-generated revenue seem to be decreasing, at the expense of municipalities, which have to pay higher levies to make up for the shortfall.
“I don’t think this is acceptable,” Curry had said of the GRCA’s annual budget report.
“The bottom line is us taxpayers are getting a bigger chunk of the pie … I’d like to see some accountability in terms of their revenues.”
But Murch said on Tuesday GRCA revenues are not decreasing. He noted GRCA user fees have increased by 2 to 10% this year depending on the area, and rent is going up a modest 0.7% as well.
“It’s been steady,” he added of the volume of campers at local GRCA parks.
Councillor Neil Driscoll said the GRCA needs to look into ways to generate more revenue and asked specifically on Tuesday if the GRCA could sell some of the farmland it owns in the township and currently rents to local farmers.
“I’d hate to see them be land rich and have us subsidizing them,” Driscoll said previously of the GRCA.
Tracey Ryan, supervisor of extension services, said the GRCA is looking into different ways of renting land, but in order to sell farmland it has to be approved by the province and the profits can’t be used to offset budget issues.
“It goes into a reserve to buy land with natural features,” Ryan said.
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On Feb. 8 council voted unanimously to approve its 2011 levy from the Maitland Valley Conservation Authority (MVCA), even though its increase was much higher, at 7.6%.
However, since only 5% of Mapleton Township lies within the MVCA, its levy is only $7,884 this year.
