I hope to help inform people about the various functions of running a Municipality (where our drinking water comes from, what happens when you flush your toilet, possible approaches to Affordable Housing etc). This post takes a broad view of the finances involved in running the County of Brant. Some people are curious about where the money comes from and how we spend that much, so here is some general information that you may find helpful:
Did you know…It takes $103 Million to run the County of Brant?
MONEY IN:
The $103 Million comes in from a variety of sources and you may be surprised to find that only slightly more than half of these revenues come from taxes. The following are approximate, but give you the broad view:
45% of our income comes from “Other” sources (For example: user fees (33%), grants from other levels of government (8.5%), and other revenues which include investment income, contributions from savings/reserves.
The rest comes from a combination of residential and commercial and industrial property taxes -approximately 55$Million
MONEY OUT:
So how do we spend $103 Million? Another surprise for many is that $14.2M is spent maintaining roads, bridges, and other elements involved in helping us get around. We spend $4M on solid waste collection, recycling, and disposal. We also spend $8M on providing clean drinking water and $4M on safely treating of wastewater. Around $6.6Million is spent servicing existing Municipal assets like Parks, Arenas, Community Centres, and Cemeteries and $2.8M is spend on providing recreational programs.
Together these Operational costs noted above are around $40 Million
Replacing existing assets and building new assets such as parks, bridges, roads, and community centres is currently budgeted at $11.2 Million. These are called Capital Costs.
Police Service from the OPP is $5.6 Million, Fire Protection is $3 Million and Paramedic services cost around $13 Million (which is offset by $11M that the City of Brantford pays us to provide paramedic service to their citizens) and it takes $2.1 Million to run our Library services. We spend $1.5M on economic development, tourism, public relations and marketing the community. We spend $2.1 on social services and Affordable Housing (which the City provides to us), $1.3M towards operating the John Noble Home, and about $2M to other agencies such as the Health Unit, Conservation Authorities, Provincial Offences Court, and Municipal Property Assessment Corporation. We spend $5.3M on planning, building permitting, and engineering for growth, most of which is recovered through fees charged to builders and developers.
Together, these Community focused Services noted above cost around $35.8M.
The balance of $16M is spent on governance, administration, bylaw enforcement, financing long-term debt, and overhead.
Not included in all of this is the cost to build new infrastructure that is resulting from growth and new development. For every housing unit built, the Developer has to pay our Municipality around $30,000 to help pay for new roads, parks, sidewalks, water and wastewater systems, and other costs. These are called Development Charges. For example, the reconstruction of Rest Acres Road is being funded by Development Charges. This ensures that existing taxpayers are not paying for the costs of growth and both the income and the expenditures related to Development Charges are not included in the amounts noted above.
Hopefully you find this general overview interesting and this breakdown of “Normal” Income and Expenditures may help as we start to discuss the impacts of COVID19 on our 2020 budget AND our planning for next year.
Note: This article was originally posted to Facebook July 28, 2020. Some information may no longer be current, but was accurate at the time of writing.