Just over a year ago, hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across southern Ontario were without power for days after the most severe ice storm in recent history.
Freezing rain on Dec. 22, 2013 downed trees and power lines, causing dozens of power outages throughout Wellington County ranging in scale from a handful of customers to several thousand.
Some had power restored within hours, while the less fortunate remained in the dark into Christmas and Boxing Day. For many, the restoration of power marked the beginning of a lengthy and arduous cleanup – and seemingly endless bills for that work.
Municipalities and conservation authorities in the Wellington area alone racked up ice storm damage bills totalling over $1.7 million.
And 12 months after the storm, they are among many across the province still waiting for their share of the $190-million Ice Storm Assistance Program offered through the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.
“I think it’s taking far too long and the criteria (for receiving assistance) continue to evolve,” said Wellington-Halton Hills MPP Ted Arnott.
He noted the process to apply for ice storm aid – which included attending webinars, filling out reams of paper work and submitting various other pieces of documentation – was “very onerous on staff” and caused “quite a bit of frustration.”
For example, Arnott said Puslinch Township had to fill out 330 pages of documents for a $45,000 claim.
Both Arnott and Perth-Wellington MPP Randy Pettapiece have suggested the process is so arduous, perhaps by design, that some municipalities have decided to forgo an application and cut their losses.
Pettapiece said it appears the province may be trying to “bury them in paper work and hope they don’t apply.”
Mark Cripps, senior communications advisor for Municipal Affairs Minister Ted McMeekin, said nothing could be farther from the truth.
“We want to make sure municipalities get the money [they are seeking],” Cripps told the Advertiser.
He later added, “This is a very good program … I think municipalities are happy with it,” but feedback from Wellington municipalities seemed to indicate otherwise.
As of Dec. 23, three of six eligible conservation authorities and just 21 of 53 eligible municipalities had submitted claims in advance of the program’s Dec. 31 deadline.
Cripps said he expects the majority to meet the deadline, but stressed “we’re not going to deny” those that can’t make it due to extenuating circumstances.
“We’re going to work with them. We’re not going to close the door on Dec. 31,” he said, adding the ministry would deal with those unable to meet the deadline on an individual basis.
As of Dec. 23, Cripps said the ministry has not heard from any municipalities stating they would not meet the Dec. 31 deadline.
Several Progressive Conservative MPPs have criticized the government’s decision in November to hire auditing firm LandLink Consulting to manage the ice storm relief fund. Critics say the firm had several problems administrating the Alberta Flood Relief Program, leading the government there to publicly end the contract.
Pettapiece has criticized what he calls the “secret deal” that will pay Edmonton-based LandLink $2.8 million to manage the program.
“How many thousands of dollars that should be going to municipalities for disaster relief is instead being spent on consulting fees?” Pettapiece asked recently when he raised the issue in the Legislature. He said the contract averages out to $46,000 per claim, which is “ridiculous.”
Cripps said LandLink was hired through a an open tender process and he noted the ministry hopes to “cost-share” the entire ice storm aid program, including the LandLink contract, with the federal government’s disaster relief program.
“We’re following [federal] protocols to ensure we can access [that money],” said Cripps. “Everything we’re doing is in order to meet the federal requirements.”
He told the Advertiser Landlink has a return rate of 99% when working with federal government assistance programs.
“This will actually ensure the money is able to flow sooner rather than later,” Cripps said of the contract with LandLink.
He refuted the opposition claim that most municipalities will have to wait until 2016 and beyond to receive ice storm aid.
He specifically mentioned municipalities “like Mapleton” that had claims in well in advance of the deadline could expect cheques “very early in the new year,” while others in the Wellington area that meet the Dec. 31 deadline should see their money “very shortly.”
“We hope the money will flowing within the next few weeks,” Cripps said.
Arnott and Pettapiece seemed surprised by that timeline. Both considered it a positive development, but they remain skeptical of the government’s handling of the program.
“Why has it taken this long?” asked Pettapiece. “It’s a frustrating process and it didn’t need to happen.”
Arnott called Cripps’ statement “welcome News if they can commit to that.” He said, “These municipalities need certainty and they need to be respected … I do trust them and I have confidence their claims are accurate.”
Wellington County
Engineer Gord Ough said the county had no plans to file an application.
“We had damage but it was perhaps not as onerous as it might have been to some of the local municipalities,” he explained. “We did help in some of the local municipalities just because we have county roads going through. We made sure the road was open.”
Ough said damage on county property “was looked after over a long period of time as far as cleaning up the brush and stuff.”
He added, “We didn’t think we’d have a very good case … and maybe it would be best if we kind of stayed out of the way and let the locals get more attention.”
Ough said while the ice storm generated more in terms of tree damage than a typical severe weather incident, “it’s not something we were looking to the province to help us out with.”
Centre Wellington
Wes Snarr, managing director of corporate services in Centre Wellington, said the township submitted an Ice Storm Assistance Program claim of $300,885 in mid-December.
Snarr said the municipality’s bill for ice storm damage has not affected municipal plans/budgets for this winter “because the purpose of the program is to fund incremental, one-time costs caused by the ice storm.”
He had little comment on the process, stating only that Centre Wellington “has prepared and submitted the information requested by the province.”
Erin
The Town of Erin has submitted a claim for $447,720.
“We know we’re going to get some money,” , said director of finance Sharon Marshall. “Now we’re just waiting to see how much … we get.”
Most of Erin’s claim is for road-related costs, Marshall said, including private contractors as well as seasonal workers the town usually hires for the winter season but had to keep on until September this year to help with the storm clean up.
The town did budget for a portion of storm-related costs and did expect some grants but there were also unanticipated expenses.
Marshall is not sure what impact the storm may have on the budget because she does not know what portion of the claim the town will receive.
“I wouldn’t say that we’re changing what we plan to do for winter control at this point,” said Marshall, adding the application process was “extremely onerous.”
Guelph-Eramosa
As of press time, Guelph-Eramosa staff was finalizing the township’s claim for $160,509, said CAO Kim Wingrove.
However, she said some costs incurred by the municipality were not eligible under the program released in November.
“The township covered the additional costs associated with the ice storm damage from tax revenue; this impacted our ability to take on new projects for the year,” Wingrove said.
She added, “We appreciate the assistance with these extraordinary costs. It has been a very difficult and time-consuming process.”
Mapleton
The Township of Mapleton was the first municipality in the province to submit an application for ice storm aid (for $23,000, most of which was paid to two contractors hired right after the storm to clear debris off roads).
But the process didn’t end there, said CAO Patty Sinnamon.
“Given the process that we had to go through and the contact (finance director Yufang Du) has had with the province since submitting, it has been nothing but a headache. Every day she has talked to them and they’re wanting more and more information,” Sinnamon said on Dec. 18.
She added the guidelines “are very poor” and the application process was “terrible.”
Mapleton’s claim was one of the smaller ones submitted and the municipality was able to cover the unbudgeted costs by drawing from reserves.
A webinar set up to help municipalities with the complicated process came too late for Mapleton.
“We met the (original) deadline and then the province announced the extension to Dec. 31,” Sinnamon said, noting she has never applied for a grant or program requiring the detail expected for ice storm relief.
“It almost makes you feel like the province has this amount of money to allocate us for this ice storm, but ‘let’s make it as difficult as possible – we won’t have to give out as much,’” she said.
“That’s honestly how we feel. It’s very frustrating.”
Minto
Minto treasurer Gordon Duff, whose township filed a claim of $80,355, also found the process frustrating.
“They’re asking for a level of detail and a level of precision that our systems aren’t designed to deliver,” said Duff.
“There’s a cost/benefit to getting that kind of information. We’re not built to deliver this type of reporting and there is a fantastic level of detail [required].”
In Minto’s case, cleanup from the storm went on literally for months.
Another challenge said Duff, is a requirement to reconcile expenses to audited financial statements.
“What happened in 2013 – those books are closed, reconciled, they’re done. For the 2014 expenses it’s not so bad, the books are still open,” Duff explained.
With $80,000 expenses from the Dec. 22 storm, combined with costs associated with an ice storm in April of 2013, wind damage from a major summer storm and a blizzard that struck shortly after the Dec. 22 event, Duff said Minto was hit hard financially.
“We basically had to reallocate … primarily what we’ve done is reduced our road expenses that we normally do in the summer. So we know our winter expenses are high so we try to partially compensate by doing less regular road maintenance in the summer and the fall.”
Duff said he was not given any indication of when money might flow from the program, other than the application will be reviewed within “a few months.
“I’m certainly not going to bank any money as receivables until we actually hear something,” he said.
Puslinch
In Puslinch, director of finance/treasurer Mary Hasan worked on submitting the detailed claim information.
“Our total claim amounts to approximately $45,000,” said Hasan. “The claim process is very detailed and required a lot of time on my end for proving the eligibility of the claimed expenditures.”
The Puslinch claim, which Hasan said was 330 pages long, was submitted on Dec. 3 and the township has not heard back regarding the status of the claim.
Hasan noted the type of information requested to support the township’s claim included:
– detailed timesheets and proof of payment for staff overtime costs and costs associated with firefighter calls related to the ice storm;
– invoices support for the current year and previous two years to determine whether the expenses claimed were incremental in nature and related to the ice storm;
– support that the amounts claimed were paid out;
– correspondence from the insurance company indicating costs were not eligible for reimbursement through insurance; and
– all costs for 2013 and 2014 recorded in separate general ledger accounts that reconcile to the audited financial statements.
Wellington North
Staff in Wellington North submitted a claim for $8,500 the week of Dec. 22, said treasurer Paul Dowber.
He explained that overall, the ice storm did not have a huge effect on the budget.
In terms of the overall process he said, “the provincial government has hired a private company to administer the application, which has drawn criticism at both the municipal and provincial level. Municipalities have claimed that the forms are onerous.”
Conservation authorities
The Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA), which covers ate least a portion of every Wellington municipality except Minto, has received acknowledgement that the government has received its $550,000 ice storm damage claim.
GRCA spokesman Dave Schultz said a lot of the claim was due to the need to hire outside contractors because storm damage was too extensive for the internal staff to address on their own.
“That doesn’t even include our own staff time,” Schultz said. “And we do have a crew that kind of work on a day-to-day basis to maintain trees for us.”
Prioritizing the cleanup meant some parks weren’t ready for the May 1 season opening and suffered an unexpected loss in revenue. Conestogo Lake’s opening was delayed by two weeks and the Elora Gorge was opened in stages as crews finished the cleanup there.
“We always have money in our budget for tree maintenance,” Schultz said. “Certainly we wouldn’t budget for another ice storm.”
Yet he said the authority would need to go into reserve funds, set to go to other projects, to cover the additional costs if this grant wasn’t available.
The Credit Valley Conservation Authority (CVC), with a catchment area that includes the eastern half of Erin, was waiting for a few additional documents at press time, but planned to submit a claim for $74,706 by the Dec. 31 deadline.
In an email statement CVC director of corporate services Gerry Robin said the ice storm damage “has no bearing on the CVC budget as the costs relate only for the 2014 calendar year.” However, “We have readjusted priorities to accommodate the ice storm related activities.”
Robin said the staff found the application to be complex but “fortunately the CVC’s claim is not as major as our local municipalities.”
The Hamilton Conservation Authority (HCA), which includes a portion of Puslinch Township south of the 401, did plan to submit a claim by Dec. 31.
“It will be in the area of $60,000 which is less than originally hoped for, but some of our expenses, such as the use of existing manpower diverted to the cleanup, do not qualify as eligible expenses under the province’s definition,” said HRCA secretary-treasurer Neil McDougall.
He described the process as being similar to many of the granting processes that various ministries have in place “so we are familiar with the approach.”
He added, “It is detailed but that isn’t a bad thing as it is taxpayers’ money that is being dispersed.”
The Saugeen Valley Conservation Authority, which includes the northern portion of Minto and Wellington North, did not submit a claim.
The Maitland Valley Conservation Authority, with a catchment area that includes a large portion of Minto as well as small portions of Mapleton and Wellington North, also did not submit a claim.
City of Guelph
The City of Guelph is asking the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH) for $917,300 to help cover the cost of cleaning up after last December’s ice storm.
The city has reviewed all costs related to the storm that occurred on December 21 and 22, 2013, and most are eligible for provincial funding – emergency response, overtime, temporary staff, cleaning up debris, removing hazardous trees and limbs, and other activities associated with protecting public safety, allowing access to roads sidewalks and frequently travelled routes.
Costs for replanting trees and restoring the tree canopy are not eligible for the program.
Payments will be issued once the Ministry has reviewed the claim.
“The City appreciates any and all support the Province is able to offer, and it’s hard to say when we can expect to receive payment,” said Al Horsman. “It took us quite a while to assemble all the documentation to support the claim, so we expect it will take some time for the Province to review it.”
The City will update the community when the claim has been processed and announce any payments to be awarded. A summary of the City’s claim is provided below.
