Owen Sound has received a rude surprise from the province.
The Ministry of Finance notified the city that the expected 10 per cent reduction in Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund grants is in fact a reduction of more than 14 per cent.
Owen Sound received $1,464,500 in OMPF grants in 2011 and had expected to receive $1,318,050 this year.
But the grant was instead reduced to $1,256,800 — which is 14.2 per cent less than last year.
The total funding from the province is $1,318,100, right around what Owen Sound had expected — but the OMPF money is combined with what had been promised to the city for court security costs — as expected, an uploading of $61,300.
In effect, the province gave the city the court security money, then took the same amount away in a larger-than-expected slash to the OMPF grants.
It’s distressing news for city officials, who recently completed budget deliberations based on expectations from the province that are now out the window.
When the budget comes to Council for final approval on February 6th, the increase of 4.6 per cent will now come in at just under 5 per cent.
Mayor Deb Haswell says the situation is “beyond frustrating,” given that the province had finally seemed to agree with the position of municipalities that court security is a provincial matter and should be paid for by Ontario.
Yet even though the news is shocking — Haswell says they really shouldn’t be surprised, given the province’s treatment of Owen Sound over the years.
She vows the city will bring the matter up at the Good Roads convention in February, and at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference in August.
