Roughly half of local tax dollars in Wellington County’s annual budgets are spent on costs generated by provincial downloading since the late 1990s, says Ken DeHart.
The county treasurer provided a primer on the budget process, touching on the recent history of provincial/municipal juggling of responsibilities, to council members during a presentation on the county’s draft 2015 budget and five-year financial plan on Jan. 6.
“The idea is to give everyone a high-level overview of where the budget sits overall before you go into your committees,” DeHart explained.
While the county takes in 54 cents of every municipal tax dollar generated, with local municipalities getting 29 cents and 17 cents going to the provincial education levy, the county assumed a large share of responsibilities from the province during a major realignment that began under the Mike Harris Conservative government in the late 1990s.
Policing is projected to cost the county about $17 million in 2015, according to the draft budget.
“Prior to late 90s the OPP was actually a free service in smaller municipalities, with the cost borne by the province,” said DeHart.
While municipal forces in towns like Harriston, Palmerston and Fergus looked after those communities, the OPP patrolled most township roads and villages on the province’s dime.
DeHart also said the cost of maintaining 22 kilometres of former provincial highways today represents about 18 per cent of the county’s budget.
Funding of social services, land ambulance, public health and property assessment were also downloaded from the province, along with responsibility for the farm tax rebate.
DeHart explained that prior to 1998, properties assessed as farmland paid 100% of their assessed tax, then filed an application with the province to receive a 75% rebate, paid directly by the province.
Since 1998, farmland has a tax ratio of 25%, meaning farmers pay property tax on only 25% of the assessed value of their property. That means costs that were once shared province-wide now fall on the non-farm municipal tax base, a policy which hits heavily-agricultural municipalities like Wellington hard.
“Basically rural Ontario is paying to subsidize cheap food for urban residents and it’s bad provincial policy,” said DeHart.
“How can we reverse this?” asked councillor David Anderson.
“We have been trying forever,” said councillor Chris White, noting, “It’s a difficult balance in a rural area because you want to support agriculture.”
“I have no problem with the money that goes back to the farmers, but that should be shared among all the people of Ontario,” commented Warden George Bridge.
DeHart estimated former provincial responsibilities cost county taxpayers over $40 million a year.
“Half of our levy is related to provincial downloads since the 1990s,” he stated.
While the province has uploaded some responsibilities in recent years, White called that “a shell game.
“Remember, whatever they’ve taken away in terms of uploading they’ve probably taken half of it back in OMPF (Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund) cuts,” White said.
