The management of Fresh, Waste, and Storm Water is a service funded quite differently from other municipal services. Unlike garbage collection, road maintenance, or other critical services, water management funding must be not come from the property tax base. Provincial legislation mandates that water be funded on its own and that funding must be self sustaining.
As Councillor Kerwin explained in Monday's Committee of the Whole meeting, the town screwed up when it installed the water delivery system years ago. They planned for water usage to increase on a per capita basis. In fact, through conservation efforts and with the advent of bottled drinking water, municipal water usage has decreased drastically.
And that is putting strain on the funding formula. With approximately 45% of your water bill going towards fixed costs (money needed to maintain the system even before anyone turns on a faucet), the drop in the usage must be balanced back by charging homes and businesses an appropriate fixed rate alongside the variable rate.
In 2012, the Council agreed to a six year plan. At that time, the Town took a massive 10% increase and Mayor Van Bynen told the Era that this was a one time "catch-up" to ensure that no further large increases would be necessary. That is small comfort to us today as we've seen Council pass a 5.71% rate hike for 2015.
Either she forgot what she voted for or else Councillor Twinney was being disingenuous and pandering when she pondered aloud that the Town Treasurer should come up with a better way of billing for low volume water consumers. She wants to give a break to snow birds and summer cottage dwellers who aren't in their homes and therefore aren't turning on their taps.
But I suspect that the real crux of the story lies within the Town's plans for more internal loans. Last year, the Town gave millions in water reserves money to fund the LED lighting project. In other words, it loaned money that the Province mandated must be used for water management, for a purpose that should have been funded by our tax base (namely street lighting).
I expect that in 2015. the Mayor has designs on more water reserve funds. He plans on spending millions on his Main St. friends and campaign donors with the gift of broadband internet and he can't afford politically to fund this pet project with a property tax hike. Because he doesn't have the stones to cut spending, it is expected that he will do another "presto/ change-o" maneuver with money ear marked for keeping our water safe.
It's appalling that the province allows municipalities to drain water reserves for projects that should be funded from the property tax base. It is equally appalling that we have a mayor that would risk our safety by taking these funds. In the time of unsettled weather as a result of global warming, who can predict when a calamity will strike, (think Calgary 2014)? Would we have to take on a crippling debt in the event of an emergency event because the Mayor spent all the water reserve money on pet projects?
It's time for the province to step in and protect water consumers from the recklessness of our municipal government. Mandate that money collected for water cannot be doled out in the form of internal loans and ensure that there are adequate reserves at all times to protect us.
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