Town spending on infrastructure may be less than average, but the mayor says Erin is still in “pretty good shape overall.”
On Sept. 4, accountant Sally Slumski of BDO presented a report to council, including a series of statistics comparing Erin to other municipalities in Wellington, Grey, Bruce, Dufferin and Simcoe counties.
“Take these with a grain of salt, because every municipality is so different,” Slumski said. “While it is somewhat useful, what’s more important is looking at things within your own context. A municipality may want to set its own benchmarks.”
Erin is “lagging a little bit” on the average age of its tangible capital assets such as roads, bridges and water system, and “that’s not likely a surprise to anyone on council,” she said.
Erin spends about 11 per cent less of taxation revenue on capital assets than other municipalities, though revenue can come from other sources as well.
The net municipal tax levy per person in Erin was $509, considerably lower than the $942 average elsewhere, but Slumski said this is skewed by municipalities with higher assessment and services provided by higher level governments.
“Looking at Wellington County alone, the Town of Erin is really very consistent with other rural/urban municipalities,” she said.
Erin has been building up its financial reserves and is holding funds that represent 50.76% of is annual expenditures (based on 2016).
But this is still lower than the average (58.97%) in other municipalities. Reserves are also lower as a percentage of taxation revenue.
“If there is a bigger message, it is that capital infrastructure is an area where a municipality needs to keep investing and reinvesting, and building reserves,” Slumski said.
“It drives home the importance of having those longer-term strategies in place.”
Erin figures fall within the province’s expected ranges, but net investment in capital projects decreased in 2017.
“If anything concerns me a little, it is probably investment in infrastructure, but the town has an extremely large infrastructure project on the horizon,” she said, referring to a wastewater system.
Mayor Allan Alls said he enjoyed reading the report.
“I’m being a little presumptuous, but I feel that Erin is in pretty good shape overall,” said Alls .
“We have infrastructure issues, but in 440 municipalities across Ontario, none of us have the money to do what we need to do going forward.
“And we can’t afford to tax our people to make that happen – we’re going to need help from other levels, or another form of taxation.”
