Just the facts ma’am – Ralph Hough and the NVCA

From 2004 to the present, the NVCA levy to O-M increased by an average 3 per cent
By Kate Harries AWARE Simcoe October 15 2010
Oro-Medonte Deputy Mayor Ralph Hough has been giving ratepayers confusing information on the amount the township pays to the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority.

First, Hough refers to an average 5.63 per cent increase from 2005-2009 in the NVCA’s overall budget.
But what the voters should be interested in is the municipal levy that Oro-Medonte pays. It has increased an average of 3 per cent since 2005.
In a recent email Hough provided the figures he had obtained from the O-M treasurer: 2005 – 6.43%, 2006 – 4.85%, 2007 – 9.35%, 2008 – 4.54%, 2009 – 3%.
This is a very incomplete picture. That’s because only about half of the NVCA’s budget is covered by the municipal levy (paid by local taxpayers). The rest comes from provincial grants, user fees and other partners.
For instance, in recent years work on source water protection (a key Walkerton inquiry recommendation to guard against contamination of drinking water supplies) caused a 10 per cent increase in the NVCA budget – but all of that was covered by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment.
So what about the levy?
The levy component of the NVCA budget is shared among 18 municipalities according to assessment. A municipality where there’s a lot of growth will see its portion of the levy go up faster relative to the other municipalities.
I obtained the levy figures from the O-M treasurer. From 2004 to 2010, the average Oro-Medonte levy increase has been 3 per cent: 2005 – 5.1%, 2006 – 3.9%,  2007 – 9.2%,  2008 – 3.4%  2009 – 1.4%, and in 2010 minus 5%.
Hough arrived at a higher figure because he left out 2010, when the NVCA budget declined by 3 per cent and the O-M levy declined by 5 per cent.
What 14 per cent increase?
Now let’s look at the figure of 14.27 per cent that Hough cites as the average yearly increase since 2002.
In 2002 Oro-Medonte council hired a consultant to look at environmental services in the township and decided to expand the NVCA’s area of service into the Severn Sound watershed. The Severn Sound Environmental Association, which has been providing service in the area, does not have regulatory powers, and the consultant recommended that the whole township should be under a uniform regulatory regime.
The new arrangement is that the SSEA continue to provide the services for which it has the capacity and expertise, and the NVCA provide the remainder.
Over the next two years the O-M levy to the NVCA went from $20,487 in 2002 to $125,113 in 2004. That’s because the NVCA was assuming responsibility for 73 per cent of the township territory, up from 20 per cent.
To take the increase from 2002 – when there was no NVCA service in the Severn Sound area – through to now, when there’s been an extra 53 per cent in service area, and to claim that it’s an average 14 per cent increase makes no sense.
Obviously the increase attributable to the expansion can’t be applied to each year because there’s not going to be an expansion every year – so the only comparison that can be projected forward is from 2004 onwards. And that is an average of 3 per cent.
You don’t need to be a mathematician to be able tell the difference between apples and oranges.