Norfolk County’s financial position has improved over the past three years but challenges remain, the county’s general manager of corporate services, says.
“The county continues to be in a position where additional steps are required,” Shelley Darlington told councilors at a recent Norfolk County Council meeting. “The largest challenges will continue to be our asset management needs, our infrastructure needs and replenishing our reserves.”
On top of all that, the county will also have to contend with the impact of significantly higher-than-normal inflationary increases.”
Darling introduced a report that highlighted some of the issues councilors will be wrestling with when 2023 budget deliberations begin in the fall and continue into January. She was followed by Kathyrn Fanning, the county’s manager of strategic financial planning and reporting.
“Similar to many households, the county has started to feel inflationary pressures,” Fanning said. “Year-over-year, we’re at about 7.7 CPI (Consumer Price Index).
“That’s on general goods and some services have seen higher pressures while others have seen lower.”
Speaking to councilors, Fanning said her report wasn’t a ‘good news’ presentation but added that the projections are very preliminary and will be refined during budget deliberations which begin in November and continue into January 2023.
She said will be working hard to mitigate some of the anticipated impacts.
Inflationary pressures will increase the county’s capital budget and 10-year plan by about $33 million which is about five per cent when compared to 2020’s capital plan, Fanning said.
Based on a preliminary high level analysis, county staff are projecting a 9.5 per cent increase to the net levy and an increase of about nine per cent to the average residential taxpayer.
Under the nine per cent tax increase, a residential property owner who paid about $2,855 in 2022 would pay about $3,112 in 2023, an increase of $257.
“Our main challenges include inflation, that has been much higher than we were expecting,” she said.
Prior to the budget report, councilors received some good news by way of a 2021 year end audit update, which showed a $14.2-million surplus in operations, a $1-million surplus in water and a $248,000-surplus in wastewater.
“A common question people ask after hearing about a surplus is why would we expect taxes to increase after we’ve had a surplus,” Fanning said. “A lot of the items that caused our surplus are one time in nature and we’re not expecting them to happen again.”
Ward 4 Coun. Chris Van Paassen called the surplus ‘respectable’ and the majority of it comes from the extra funding provided by the province for COVID-19 related expenses.
“Our staff was proactive, made cuts and saved money not knowing whether we were going to get that funding or not,” Van Paassen said. “The fact that we got it is the reason most of that surplus is there.”
Mayor Kristal Chopp said residents are being hit harder than ever in every aspect of their lives, which makes it very difficult for her to look at new budget initiatives.
“All municipalities are concerned moving into this coming budget,” Chopp said. “That’s a fact, it’s not just Norfolk.”
Ward 2 Coun. Linda Vandendriessche said she appreciates there are a lot of pressures.
But, she added, the county needs to be proactive and do what it can to attract people to Norfolk.
More people coming to Norfolk means more tax dollars for the county, she said.
“I think it’s very important to go through the process but I think it’s also important to be proactive and do what we can to make this county stand out,” Vandendriessche said.
twitter.com/EXPVBall