Draft budget includes 3.4 per cent tax hike

Funding for street outreach program to be cut
By Nicole Million Midland Mirror Jan 10, 2011
MIDLAND – As the Town of Midland inches closer to finalizing its 2011 budget, the street outreach program appears set to become a casualty of cost cutting.
Staff met with members of council on Jan. 5 to get direction on the fourth draft of the municipal budget, which included a number of items council has been grappling with for months.
Coun. Pat File commented that the downtown core has experienced significant changes since the town set up the street outreach program, including the addition of several agencies whose mandate it is to work with those in need.“We’ve been limping along without knowing from one year to the next if we’re going to be able to sustain it,” she said, adding it might be time to pass the torch to those agencies.
Coun. Zena Pendlebury pleaded with council not to lose sight of the reason the successful program was started.
“It is a unique program,” she said. “By virtue of where we are and the nature of our community, we need this.”
Coun. Bob Jeffery agreed: “We’ve come a long way since we’ve had it. We all saw how it was before.”
However, due to the $22,000 cost of maintaining the program beyond the end of February, the item was ultimately removed from the town’s 2011 budget.
Treasurer Sue Gignac asked for direction on several other items, including Safe Communities Midland, accessible transit, and requests from several departments for additional staff.
“We need a decision on council’s intent, and then we can come back with (a budget),” she said.
After the meeting, Gignac noted taxpayers are looking at an approximately 3.4 per cent increase on the town portion of their tax bills, or 2.1 per cent added to the bottom line. She stressed, however, that the budget is “still a work in progress.”
The request for $5,000 for Safe Communities Midland was left in the fourth draft, while $50,000 for heavy-garbage pickup did not survive the vote. Council opted to wait and see what the County of Simcoe decides in terms of waste management over the next year before making a decision on whether to reinstate the much-debated curbside pickup service.
Requests from the library for an additional staff person ($19,000), from parks and recreation for two part-time staff and two students ($64,000), and from the planning department to extend a maternity leave position until the end of 2011 ($15,400) all survived the fourth draft.
Coun. Jim Attwood said the town would be remiss in not approving additional staffing for the newly expanded library.
File concurred, noting the request from chief librarian Bill Molesworth is a modest one: “In order to have more people come in and out, they need the support.”
Not everyone approved of hiring more staff, however, with Coun. Mike Ross reminding council the town has a hiring freeze in place.
“We should stay with that. If people leave, (then) other staff should pick up the slack,” he said. “I don’t think anyone should lose their job, but we should stick with the (hiring) freeze.”
The next budget meeting is scheduled for Jan. 17 at 5:30 in the North Simcoe Sports and Recreation Centre’s Bill Thompson Room.