CITY GETTING $19.5 MILLION PANDEMIC BAILOUT

Province, feds acknowledge city's unique difficulties

In recognition of the “unique challenges” Windsor has faced dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, it's getting an additional $14.4-million in federal/provincial Safe Restart funding, says Mayor Drew Dilkens.

“Today's a great announcement because the province has recognized the number of unique circumstances and challenges that the City of Windsor faces, and given us $14.4 million,” Dilkens said Wednesday.

That's on top of $5.1 million in funding to help offset 2021 municipal operating budget challenges, money that will be used to preserve capital projects next year, bringing the total to $19.5 million.

“The $5 million was an acknowledgment that we're going to continue to have challenges into 2021. And every municipality will,” Dilkens said.

The money is part of $24.4 million in Safe Restart funding announced locally. Also receiving money is the County of Essex ($1.9 million), Amherstburg ($405,000), Town of Essex ($230,000), Lakeshore ($ 899,000), Kingsville ($230,000), Lasalle ($294,000), Leamington ($684,000), Tecumseh ($234,000) and Pelee Island ($81,000.) In the initial round of Safe Restart funding earlier this year, local municipalities received almost $27 million.

“Fighting COVID-19 and protecting our communities requires a Team Canada approach,” MP Irek Kusmierczyk ( Windsor-tecumseh) said in a statement.

“This funding demonstrates our government's commitment to support municipalities,” he said.

Windsor's coffers have taken a big hit since March with the closures of the casino, the airport and the Detroit-windsor border, which all bring revenues to the city.

With tunnel revenues down more than 90 per cent, “it's basically all expense with very little revenue,” said Mayor Dilkens.

“Those three things added together in addition to the regular sort of COVID expenses and decreased revenues that many municipalities will see on arenas, pools and the community centre side — no one's taking a yoga class right now — all of those revenue streams dried up but every municipality's experienced that,” he said.

The city had to apply for the additional funding from the province. Dilkens said staff was pulled from 2021 budget preparations in September to work on the complicated application due in October.

“So we agreed to push the budget into 2021 to allow our folks to make an application because we knew we had a big hole to fill here.”

Had the city not received the money, Dilkens said council would have faced “huge challenges moving into 2021” because there is no end in site to revenue losses. The border remains closed to non-essential traffic, Caesars Windsor will not have a normal operating year, and air travel is not going to be anywhere close to normal until the vaccine is well entrenched.

“It would have taken the form of service cuts, staff reductions or capital reductions or property tax increase,” he said.

“I was clear and council was clear right from the beginning that our last objective is to cancel any capital project. We want to do everything that we had planned to do at the start of the year and deliver on that the best way that we could. “We haven't cancelled anything.” The Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing Safe Restart program awarded funds to 48 municipalities in Ontario. Only two — Brampton and Toronto — are receiving more than Windsor.