Essex County's treasurer predicts rate increases will start to fall once the county catches up on its infrastructure deficit.
Like many jurisdictions across Ontario, the county spends less each year to fix, facilities and other assets than the actual cost of upkeep, but Rob Maisonville says that gap is quickly closing. Last year, the county was paying 86% of the full cost on existing infrastructure and about the same on expanding assets.
"In 2017, we further advance that. So, we'll be at about 94% of our funding requirements," he says. "In 2018, we'll be fully funded. We'll be fully funded not just on infrastructure replacement but also our expansion programs that we've identified."
Trimming the infrastructure deficit will pay off for taxpayers, adds Maisonville.
"Even though we've always had a very low tax rate increase, we're going to start to see that decrease even," says Maisonville. "We won't have that requirement."
It is not just the immediate needs the county is planning for, Maisonville says expansion projects are included in the numbers too.
"We have what we have, and we need to maintain all of that, but we're also growing so expanding," he says. "We have a funding model to take care of that without issuing debt and without significantly impacting our levy."
Although the proposed acute care hospital in Windsor is considered infrastructure, Maisonville says it is not included in the accounting. The county has committed to raising $96.3-million over the next decade, its share of the $200-million that has to be raised locally to pay for the $2-billion project.
- With files from Paul Pedro