The municipality’s books are in order for 2016, reports auditor David Richenback.
In a report presented at the June 20 council meeting, Richenback stated the town’s consolidated financial statements “represents fairly” the town’s financial position as of Dec. 31, 2016.
The report indicates an annual surplus for 2016 of $982,476 and an accumulated surplus of $73,261,218.
“Nothing much has changed appreciably … over the last year,” Richenback told council
“Cash is down quite a bit, down by $1.3 million roughly. Why is it down? A lot of it is we paid our accounts payable down and did the normal operations,” he explained.
Minto treasurer Gordon Duff noted that at the same time, receivables are up over the previous year. Duff attributed the change to late-in-the-year billings for fire agreements with other municipalities and municipal drains.
“This was another active year for both operations and capital,” the auditor’s report states. “The next few years will be challenging as Minto finances its share of large infrastructure projects.
“Provincial and federal grants are a great help but the local share is still significant. Continued progress on the asset management roadmap will help Minto to prioritize capital projects and best take advantage of federal and provincial funding opportunities.”
Deputy mayor Ron Faulkner told Richenback his ongoing concern is balancing expenses against payback.
Faulkner said he was recently struck by a statement from a speaker he heard on the topic of global economies.
“He said, ‘You people in southern Ontario have no idea what you’ve got here.’ I visualize southern Ontario being a huge end spot for a lot of (immigrants) that will want to move here, invest here. Our dilemma of course is how much money do we try to put into reserves so we can try and meet that challenge. … I struggle with that,” he stated.
“I’m sure we have to do more to prepare for the future because I don’t believe southern Ontario has even begun to see the changes we’re going to see for the future,” said Faulkner, who asked Richenback for his thoughts on pending financial challenges.
The auditor replied, “Well, now that (federal Conservative leadership candidate) Kellie Leitch didn’t get in, I guess immigration’s on the table again, and that’s where the growth is going to come from … it’s not going to come from our own people.
“So it’s all in what they bring with them and how we structure immigration.”
Faulkner asked, “How are we going to prepare financially as a municipality for that? What we would need in the future to prepare the Town of Minto to meet that challenge is going to be astronomical.”
Richenback replied, “You’re going to need help with that and if there’s an immigration initiative it’s going to be federally instituted, it’s going to have to be federally funded.”
Duff suggested a proposal from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities that would see one per cent of Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) dedicated to municipalities for infrastructure could be part of the solution.
“We need something that grows with the economy,” Duff stated.
“With immigration, migration, were working on a project with Wellington County,” said Mayor George Bridge, explaining officials are making contact with the region’s large Filipino population.
“Were getting them together and asking them how we can support them more,” said Bridge, noting putting people to work locally takes care of a lot of financial problems.
“We’re growing our taxbase,” he said.
Richenback noted, “You’ve also got a lot of infrastructure that, if your population went up, you’re not going to have to build another arena.”
Bridge pointed out that as the only Wellington County community not within the official Greenbelt area, the municipality can expect to eventually see more development.
While capacity for an additional 300 or 400 homes in Palmerston currently exists, Bridge suggested, “We’re going to have to look five years down the road and realize we’re going to have to do something with our (sewage treatment) plant and other things, but we should have a bigger base to help us get there.
“So it’s scary, but fun scary. If we weren’t increasing in population and going down, it would even be more scary,” the mayor added.
