GREENSTONE – What do the people in Greenstone want?
“The only thing a community wants is a safe and sustainable service in a predictable, cost-effective manner,” said Greenstone’s community asset manager during the council meeting on Monday.
He went on to elaborate that tax players want to see financial resources available without seeing fluctuating taxes increases and decreases year after year.
To be able to ensure that municipalities aren’t conducting frivolous spending on unsustainable community assets, back in 2017, the government of Ontario enacted regulations under the Infrastructure for Jobs and Prosperity Act which allows municipal governments to commission a community asset manager to oversee corporate funds and strategically plan how those funds are to be used in the community.
The idea is to prevent a municipality from going bankrupt.
What’s considered a community asset?
Any piece of equipment that is worth $5,000 or more and has a fiscal lifecycle of 15 months. This would mean equipment like water pumps for water treatment, sewer pipes, replacement parts on emergency service vehicles, and snow plows are all considered assets to the municipality. These are only a few examples.
Therefore, these assets will need to be filed in the community asset plan so that funds are available if those assets break down and need to be replaced.
When it comes to the residents of Greenstone, the council is responsible for making all the information on community assets available to the public and then gathering feedback from the public on what assets are worth spending money on and which assets aren’t.
Consequently, it’s up to the public to afford these assets through tax spending. If municipal taxes increase, this is because community members consider road maintenance a priority.
That being the case, the importance of community assets will be directed through a consensus of the residents of Greenstone.
If residents don’t feel that a new water pump is necessary for access to clean drinking water and that spending should be diverted to sewer upgrades in the municipality, the money is spent on what the community deems viable.
So far, Greenstone has $266 million in assets, which in total costs $112,423 per household. 52 million dollars in assets that are beyond their service life according to the asset manager.
This doesn’t mean to say that all the water mains and sewer pipes are crumbling away because they surpassed their expiry date.
On the one hand, some assets can operate well past their life cycle, but on the other hand, some assets will fail and need to be replaced.
With 50 per cent of Greenstone’s community assets working in poor to very poor conditions, those assets are something the residents of the Greenstone will need to consider which assets are worth spending their hard enough tax dollars on fixing.
In essence, the province is expecting council members to understand their community needs, understand the services in their community, determine the cost of providing that service, and then manage their own financial resources to make that happen.
“So, what they’re really saying is develop levels of service that your community is willing to pay for themselves and live within their own means,” said the community asset manager.
“I am sitting here, and I am frustrated by all this” began Mayor Renald Beaulieu. “I’ll be honest. I've been saying this for years. A municipality should have been run like a business. Now the government is now pushing that into that position. For the longest time, we let people believe the municipality will do this, the municipality will do that. See what Greenstone looks like right now. Everybody’s expectation is that our right we should have this, we should have that. Well, we can’t afford it. In my business, if we can afford it or in my personal life, if I can’t afford it, I can’t buy it. Or what’s going to happen is what going to happen in real life. Not too many municipalities go bankrupt, but a lot of personal people go bankrupt, and a lot of small businesses go bankrupt because they don’t manage their affairs in a proper way. We haven’t been managing properly.
Now, it’s up to the community to say what services they want in their community and must be willing to pay for it through taxes. It is up to the council to provide the community with all the information so that community members can make an informed decision on what they are willing to pay for.
All community assets much are accounted for by 2026 before the final draft of the community asset plan comes into full effect.