NPCA giving back $1.6M
Board members vote 8-3 in favour of re-imbursement
After three years of overcharging taxpayers while awaiting the outcome of an appeal by the City of Hamilton, Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority board members voted Wednesday to give back the $1.6 million.
Although board members voted 8-3 in favour of reimbursing the municipalities, a few board members felt NPCA could have made better use of at least some of the money.
The money has been held in abeyance since 2015, pending a decision by the Mining and Lands Commissioner Tribunal regarding Hamilton’s appeal of NPCA’s levy apportionment which increased the city’s annual contribution.
Since the tribunal ruled in NPCA’s favour in December, allowing NPCA to reimburse the three municipalities within the watershed — with $1.28 million going back to Niagara, $331,095 to Hamilton and $31,259 to Haldimand.
But board member and St. Catharines regional Coun. Bruce Timms suggested retaining at least some of that money owed to Niagara to use for NPCA projects.
“The conservation authority has plenty of good work to do on our properties and within our jurisdiction that I think we need to carry on with,” Timms said.
“There’s $265,000 of deferred capital projects that we could at the very least retain that much of the $1.2 million from Niagara.”
He suggested giving Niagara Region a choice of requiring all funds to be reimbursed, or instead allowing NPCA to retain enough to complete the deferred projects.
“Speaking Niagara specific, we put this money to work on conservation projects within the various jurisdictions, or you can have the money back and put it into the big black pot of regional expenses,” Timms said.
NPCA chair Sandy Annunziata, however, ruled Timms’ amendment out of order.
Although Grimsby Coun. Tony Quirk said he would support the recommendation to reimburse the municipalities, he said he also agrees with Timms’ point of view.
“By giving it back to the three funding municipalities, they would seem to think that it’s their money and it’s not. It’s the taxpayer’s money,” he said. “We are a levying body. We overtaxed. The mechanism for getting the money back into the hands of that taxpayers is somewhat limited so I’m willing to go that route.”
He suggested that NPCA board members — many of whom are also regional councillors — could bring forward motions at an upcoming regional council meeting to specify how the municipality should use the funds.
Rob Shirton, representing Haldimand County, said his municipality “wants the money back.”
He said that has been the municipality’s expectation for the past three years.
Shirton wondered why Hamilton has $331,095 owing to it, when the payment increase from that municipality was the subject of the appeal.
“We’ve been overcharging Hamilton for the last three years? Explain that please,” he said.
Quirk, chair of NPCA’s budget committee, told Shirton “it’s the mechanics of how the general levy works.”
“If Hamilton won (the appeal), this money would have had to go back to Hamilton because they would have been overcharged on their levy. They were being overcharged based on that higher level of assessment.”
Board vice-chair James Kaspersetz, from Hamilton, said NPCA should develop a communications strategy regarding the reimbursement, hoping to avoid any perceptions that NPCA was in error.
“I do know that the money could be allocated to some social programs that the city of Hamilton has a deficit on,” he said.