MINTO – Town council has approved a resolution in support of Wellington County’s efforts to convince the province to maintain funding transfers to municipalities.
On Jan. 8 Mayor George Bridge updated councillors on a letter from provincial finance minister Vic Fedeli received by municipalities prior to the Christmas break warning of looming cuts to the Ontario Municipal Partnership Program (OMPF), which provides non-designated grant funding to municipalities.
“We got a letter at Christmas time … explaining that we all have to tighten our belts to save the world and the fact that they are going to look at maybe taking some of our OMPF because the provincial government is putting too much money out,” Bridge told council.
He reported the county has built an anticipated OMPF cut of $360,000 into it’s draft 2019 budget and pointed out that in 2018 Minto’s OMPF funding was cut by $170,000 from 2017.
“So it’s very big for us,” said Bridge, noting “last year 33 per cent of our budget was based on OMPF.”
Bridge said he has repeatedly stressed to provincial officials, including local MPP Randy Pettapiece, that municipalities “have nine per cent of the tax revenue and 60 per cent of the infrastructure, so this isn’t something that they should be taking away from us.”
Bridge explained OMPF grants replaced an earlier provincial grant program, designed to compensate municipalities for provincial downloads and changes to the Farm Tax Rebate under the Conservative government of Premier Mike Harris.
Prior to 1998, properties assessed as farmland paid 100% of their assessed tax to the local municipality, then filed an application with the province to receive a 75% rebate, paid directly by the province.
“So the province said ‘Well that’s a lot of paperwork. Why don’t we do it this way and we’ll keep you whole? It won’t be a problem.’ Well that hole has been getting deeper and deeper as we go,” said Bridge
Since then, farmland, other than the farm residence and one acre, has been allocated a tax ratio of 25%, meaning farmers pay property tax on only 25% of the assessed value of their property. That means the cost of providing the rebate, once shared province-wide, now falls on the non-farm municipal tax base.
“We’re really subsidizing the cities for … reasonable food cost benefits that they’re getting from this program,” Bridge added.
