The Saugeen Valley Conservation Authority (SVCA) board will have to sharpen its pencil if it wants to sell any levy increase to Wellington North council.
Councillors rejected a proposed hike of $4,200 or nine per cent (to $54,580) in the levy charged by the SVCA.
The authority’s board is proposing combined increase of $123,630 in the levies paid by its 15 member municipalities – to a total of $1,497,081 in 2012.
SVCA chief administrative officer Jim Coffey attended Monday’s council meeting along with SVCA board chairman Bill Scriven and Wellington North’s representative on the authority board Mark MacKenzie.
Coffey said the authority is not planning any capital projects in the coming year and is concentrating on maintaining facilities it operates. In the past the authority has borrowed from reserves to undertake capital projects.
“The board will no longer borrow from reserves,” he told council. “We can only borrow from reserves for so long.”
Coffey said conservation authorities have seen provincial money shrink over the past 10 to 15 years, making them rely on levies to maintain operations.
Although the SVCA generates money through its campgrounds and sale of trees taken from conservation property, other recreational property use is operated at no cost to the public.
Coffey said the board might have to reconsider how it operates recreational property if it can’t collect the proposed levy.
Mayor Ray Tout said he couldn’t support the proposed increase, particularly when council has already instructed its departments to bring in budgets with between three to 3.5 increases as part of Wellington North’s budget process.
“A nine percent increase is a little hard to swallow when you’re looking at the rate of inflation at about three percent,” the mayor said.
Councillor Dan Yake agreed, saying he could not support the proposed increase.
“We struggle each and every year to keep our numbers in line and sometimes we have to do without,” Yake said, suggesting the SVCA board may also have to come up with cuts to bring the increase within the rate of inflation.
“We looked at a three or 3.5 percent increase in our municipality. It’s hard to swallow when the conservation authority is nine percent. It’s more then what I think we should contribute.”
MacKenzie was instructed to take council’s rejection to the upcoming board meeting, where a final decision is expected on the SVCA budget.
