Councillors here recently held a special finance and personnel committee of the whole meeting to consider the town’s capital forecast for 2010 as well as priorities for next year.
Township Treasurer Gord Duff wanted the review. He said at the past meeting council committed itself to a lot of projects, primarily sewer and water items.
The economic development project is in that list as well.
“I want to emphasize again that it’s leaving the cupboard pretty bare for other things,” Duff said.
He offered highlights of a preliminary wish list. It contains $2.5-million worth of road projects, “but I don’t have $2.5-million of funds. Basically, we’ve got a little bit of holdover from some of the unallocated road grants, but not a lot. And we’ll have about $265,000 from the gas tax funds.” He said roads reserves are pretty bare as well.
Duff added there is some bridge work originally allocated for 2009, which will now be sitting in 2010. That work is worth about $250,000. Some work on the Ayton Road has also been deferred. He said the estimate for the whole project is $700,000.
Duff said there is some work the municipality has already committed to do on the Arthur Street Bridge.
“Again, there is some difficulty with the funding, despite previous announcements. The mayor’s been working on it, I’ve been working on it. I think there’s a reasonable chance the funding will be restored – about $315,000 – but there is no guarantee. The thing is, even if we don’t get the funding, we still have to do the work.”
Works Director Norm Fisk added, “That work needs to be done. We’ll be pushing it if we wait another year.”
He said the Elora Street connecting link road work has about $234,000 worth of grant funding, but with the additional water main work required the project will likely come in at closer to $500,000. Fisk said the money for that part of the work was in this year’s budget.
“Plus there is half a plow truck paid for, and we’d sort of like to get the other half.” Fisk explained Minto has the truck.
As for water, “We probably still have a couple of million dollars worth of work to do in Clifford.”
Mayor David Anderson interjected, commenting about rumours of possible funding intakes for 2010. Duff said all he is aware of is another round of infrastructure fund applications, which he expects to be announced soon.
He said council had agreed earlier if a grant is announced the municipality would apply to service the Palmerston Industrial Park.
Duff said in that particular grant application, the project must be directly related to economic development or an investment strategy. He had not heard much more about straight infrastructure funding, but believes there will be a statement later this fall.
“Based on Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan’s recent e-conference, I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of good News,” he said, adding things are in flux at the federal level too. Duff said that was one of the arguments about having an federal election right now.
He noted, too, “The whole water meter issue seems to get bumped forward each year. Sewers is where we have a lot of commitments.” He added there is at least some good News for council. At the previous meeting, council applied to Canada Mortgage and Housing for a loan that was approved.
As for the fire department, Duff said Fire Chief Chris Harrow has a plan and a he is financing a lot of costs from development charges reserves.
There is still $150,000 in regular costs that may be a problem next year, Duff said.
In recreation, Duff said he talked with David Stonley about projects. Duff said quite a bit has been devoted to recreation in the past five to six years.
However, he said Stonley’s main priority is to create a recreation master plan, at an estimated cost of $50,000, which he believes can be accommodated.
While Minto will have considerable unexpended capital at the end of 2009, Duff said of the $3.1-million, $2.1-million is already committed. Plus, he said there is roughly $6-million in municipal reserves.
“We want to keep something in there. But it may come down to the fact that if we have some projects we cannot defer … We might have to draw from that.”
Deputy-mayor Judy Dirksen said the town’s reserves generally are in the $7-million area. Duff said they have gone down a little recently, but not as much previously thought because some funding has come in. However, following questions from the mayor, Duff said that a $1.7-million reserve on the value of Westario is not easily liquidated.
He said there is around $530,000 in the fire reserve, $344,000 in the workers’ compensation and town’s self insurance and $450,000 for the arenas.
He noted the town has borrowed heavily to deal with those projects.
Water and sewer reserves are not as in good a condition as they could be “because they [the operations] have been running at such a deficit.” He said for Clifford, in particular, “The reserve is a huge negative.”
Duff added water reserves are fairly minimal for the time being, at around $600,000. He said the town has roughly $800,000 in a working capital reserve.
Anderson said he understood that many of the reserves are already earmarked for projects. He said it is nice to say there is X-amount in reserves, but that is an infrastructure replacement reserve.
Councillor Rick Hembly noted next year the Clifford station of the Minto Fire Department is due for a new truck – at a cost of nearly $400,000.
Duff told council if there are priorities, to let him know. Dirksen said discussing those will likely be a meeting on its own.
Councillor Wayne Martin said it is good to start the process.
Anderson asked if the “worst of the worst was covered off in Clifford.”
Fisk said there is still a lot of work to be done. Old mains are still connected to new mains, and the town needs to continue water main replacement.
Duff later said, “We’ve been working on this for years now.”
Minto had a plan of including a capital budget of $500,000 for each of the next four years, but, “I don’t think we can afford that right now,” Duff said.
The town has already spent $1.8-million for a new water tower and contact chamber and another $1.5-million replacing water pipes in the village over the past four to five years. There’s still is a lot to be done.
Minto intends to replace all the cast iron water pipes in the Clifford, but is only about half way to that goal.
