Modest tax hike in Essex County budget
Council keeps increase below inflation, dips into reserves due to drop in revenue
Essex County council passed a 2021 budget Wednesday that includes a .49 per cent tax increase that translates into $4.70 on a home assessed at a value of $200,000.
The 2021 total operating budget is set at $193.1 million, with Essex County responsible for raising $112.5 million through the tax levy. The remainder will come from the province, user fees and other third-party sources.
“This budget is pretty conservative,” said Warden Gary McNamara. “It's a pretty much status-quo budget.
“My big concern is 2021 — the risk could be even greater moving forward. At some point, we're going to have to make it up.”
To try and achieve the minimal tax increase, the county would dip into its reserves for $12.2 million to offset costs and loss of revenues due to COVID-19. Currently the reserve fund has nearly $190 million.
In addition the county has already decided to pause on collecting the 1.5-per-cent levy it sets aside for future infrastructure projects for 2021.
Despite trying to hold the line well under the inflation rate, there were a couple of new proposals that drew praise from council.
One of those was the creation of a Mental Health and Addictions Response Team (MHART).
The pilot project would see a team consisting of one Essex Windsor Emergency Medical Services worker and one staff member of a partner agency specialized in mental health and addiction respond to calls dealing with mental health and addictions.
The goal of the specialized care is to help relieve demand on emergency medical services. About 15 per cent of all calls the Essex Windsor EMS attends are in regards to mental health/addictions.
The launch of the program would see staff available for 12 hours per day.
“We're looking at what hours would be best,” said Essex Windsor EMS Chief Bruce Krauter.
“With 15 per cent of calls being for mental health issues, there'll be an impact on emergency services and the ER.”
Krauter said he would give a report mid-year on the project to study whether it would be worth expanding its hours of operation.
Krauter said changes to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board program in 2020 saved EMS $900,000, along with a $775,000 increase in provincial base funding and community paramedicine funding of $206,500, allowed for the program's creation.
Council also eagerly supported Sun Parlour Retirement Home's plan to add a specialist in infection control and prevention and one more housekeeper, after watching COVID-19 strike hardest at seniors this year.
“An infection control coordinator is needed to ensure best practices and education of our team members,” said Sun Parlour's CEO Jayne Brooks Keller.
“Going forward this is something that needs to be ongoing. This experience has taught us it can't be someone's part-time job, but their main focus.”
County director of finance Sandra Zwiers also revealed an unexpected infrastructure grant from the province of $862,000 received Tuesday.
The plan is to use the funds to repave County Road 20 from County Road 50 to the recently rebuilt Big Creek Bridge.