Simcoe County councillors talked numbers on Tuesday morning and in the end voted to recommend approving the 2021 draft budget, with a few amendments.
Last week, the $572-million draft budget was presented with a zero per cent tax rate increase. However, Barrie Mayor Jeff Lehman posed some questions to county staff this week about whether the separated cities of Barrie and Orillia are being overcharged for their use of some county services, as Barrie’s portion is increasing by 7.7 per cent and Orillia’s by approximately 17.9 per cent.
“I recognize the need is great, especially in human services,” said Lehman. “This might be because of the funding formula where we fund human services and that happens to be the area of the budget where we all know substantial investment is needed... but I will need to go back to my taxpayers and explain that discrepancy.”
Barrie and Orillia residents do not pay taxes at the county level, as they are separated cities. Instead, the municipalities allocate a specific amount in their own budget to pay for the use of some county services.
For the City of Barrie, its contribution to use some county services will be coming with a price tag of $26.8 million for 2021, an increase of 7.7 per cent over 2020 budget numbers.
For the City of Orillia, its contribution to use county services will be $7.7 million for 2021, which is 17.9 per cent more than 2020.
“The ask of Barrie and Orillia to fund the increasing staffing costs of long-term care, which appears to be to replace provincial funding which was forecast to end... as the budget stands, has it been built with the municipalities stepping in to replace provincial funding?” asked Lehman.
General manager of corporate performance Trevor Wilcox responded to Lehman’s concerns.
“We received funding from the province, Safe Restart funding, which we’ve applied to the county portion of those costs. The cities also received this funding,” said Wilcox, stating Barrie received $6.6 million and Orillia got $1.7 million through the same program.
“It would be appropriate (for the cities) to award some of that funding toward these types of services, as the county has had to do," he added.
Lehman acknowledged the City of Barrie would be working with its own funding to help cover some of the increase from the county.
“When the province makes a decision and vacates the space... we are faced with a choice of: Do we continue or are we forced to reduce the service? I don’t think, in any circumstance, we would consider the latter during the pandemic,” he said.
The County of Simcoe 2021 draft budget is up for ratification on Nov. 24.
