Dysart draft budget sees OPP increase absorbed by taxation

Obscenely high and unsustainable policing costs. OPP bills are destroying communities its officers are supposed to protect. Apparent self-interest is cloaked in the guise of public safety needs. Where is the political outrage while OPP costs continue to climb? Who is going to bring policing costs in this province under control?

Dysart draft budget sees OPP increase absorbed by taxation

Postby Thomas » Tue Mar 03, 2015 4:17 pm

The numbers are coming in and as expected, the OPP billing increase will be hitting taxpayers hard.

A draft budget released at last week’s council meeting by Dysart et al treasurer Barbara Swannell gives an estimate of expenditures and revenues for 2015.

The draft estimates this year’s expenses will ring in around $11.7 million.

One of the biggest expected expenses is the cost of area roads, with the transportation services component making up for 36 per cent of overall expenditures.

Much of the cost is spent on maintaining area roads and infrastructure.

The 2015 transportation budget is $4.2 million, up from 2014.

“We’ve experienced quite a harsh year in 2014 with the flooding in the summer and the extreme snowfall in the winter, so we have built in a more realistic number for those types of events for 2015,” said the treasurer.

Coming in second is the environmental services portion, costing the municipality about $2.4 million, with protective services in a close third at $2.2 million.

Protective services was one area in particular that saw a jump in costs this year due to the increase in the OPP billing model, which was changed by the province last year.

In 2014 the municipality budgeted $1,150,408 for police expenses, paying in actuality $1,140,056. For 2015 police expense has been budgeted at $1,440,285.

“That there represents about $298,000 increase,” she said. “That is a definite.”

The municipality is planning on absorbing that cost in the tax rate, according to the treasurer.


“It will translate into a tax increase,” said Swannell.

Still under discussion, the draft budget also includes about $1.3 million allocated for recreation and culture, just over half a million on planning and development and $2.4 million on environmental services.

General government is budgeted at close to $900,000, including council and staff wages.

The revenue streams in the draft budget for Dysart include almost $2 million in grants and payments in lieu, $3.2 million in other non-tax revenue and $6.5 million in municipal taxation.

The draft budget is still under review at this time, said Swannell.

“Nothing has been finalized.”

By Angelia Blenich

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