Representatives from the Grey Sauble Conservation Authority visited Meaford Council on Monday January 23 to present their draft budget for 2012.
GSCA Chair Dick Hibma and CAO John Cotrill told council that Meaford's annual levy would jump from $141,413 in 2011 to $153,954 in 2012, an increase of nearly 9 percent.
While members of council were pleased with the budget in general, they along with Meaford's Treasurer David Kennedy are confused about the larger than expected increase, especially given that communities like the Town of the Blue Mountains will experience a levy increase of just 2 percent in 2012.
Cotrill told council that he too was surprised when he saw the numbers, but said that the GSCA uses a “modified current value assessment” when calculating the levies for member municipalities. The modified current value assessment numbers are received by the GSCA from the Ministry of Natural resources, who take MPAC assessment data and run the numbers through their own formula in order to develop the assessment numbers for conservation authorities to use in establishing their levies.
“We went back to them and said this can't be right,” Cotrill told council.
Meaford Treasurer David Kennedy told council that he has asked MPAC to forward to him the data that was sent to the MNR so that he can review for himself and report back to council.
In the data presented to council the GSCA numbers show that Meaford's overall assessment increased from $1.4 billion to $1.5 billion while the Town of the Blue Mountains had a decrease in assessment from $2.9 billion last year to $2.8 billion this year.
Kennedy told reporters that those numbers don't make sense and he is looking into it. In the interim Kennedy said that the full levy contained in the draft budget for the GSCA has been included in Meaford's 2012 budget which was approved later in the same meeting to ensure that Meaford is not caught short of the levy being requested is upheld after a review of the data.
“Everybody agrees you are doing a super job and in the most economical way for our county,” offered Mayor Francis Richardson, “We all want to pay our fair share, but Meaford's increase is significantly higher. Meaford is at nine per cent and some of the others are significantly less or at a reduction,”
Richardson also said that the municipality has the same duty as a residential property owner to review their assessment and seek clarification if they feel an error has been made.
“We're doing the same thing a property owner would do if they suspected an error in their assessment,” explained Richardson.
