GREENSTONE — Council has decided to start putting money aside to eventually go forward with a multi-million dollar repair of its pool.
With many municipalities struggling to gather funding while keeping tax levies moderate, there is not much room on the budget to address the cost of repairing and rehabilitating aging infrastructure in a post-pandemic climate.
To keep up with provincial mandates of a balanced budget, municipalities have to make the hard decision of which services to keep funding are expendable.
In 2023, the pool was budgeted a net levy of $107,700.
After receiving a report back in September that repairs and rehabilitation to the Greenstone Pool would cost $2.4 million, council decided that closure of the pool was a more feasible option until such time they could secure the funding for the required upgrades.
Consequently, this usually means recreational services are the first to go once their expenditure outweighs their revenue.
Therefore, Council has now decided to create a reserve fund to address the Greenstone Pool repairs and rehabilitation so that someday the money would be available.
The reserve pool fund will consist of a contribution of $73,000, which is equivalent to 0.42 per cent of the tax levy and all surplus funds from the 2023 budget.
"Has anybody looked into a rough idea of how many years we're going to have to be setting aside money before we can enjoy the fruits of our labour?” Coun. Alan Ouellet asked during a council meeting last wee.
“That's certainly a big question,” Mayor James McPherson responded before passing the floor off to CAO Mark Wright.
“I wouldn't expect that the intent is we continue this until we have enough money to completely pay for a new pool. It's that we start putting the money in the bank so that we have it there. So, over the next two, three, or four years, as we look at the different options, we can determine, what's feasible for us and now at least we have a pot of money to start with. Then we can either go out and get application-based funding for meeting the rest similar to the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation,” stated Wright.
Wright explains that there is no definite timeline for how long staff will be adding to the reserve pool fund. Ultimately, the decision would be up to the council of the day. Moreover, Council would decide to remove money from funding from the reverse and relocate to another project.
“So, either this council a couple of years down the term or with a new council, they may come in and say, “you know what, we know we have money set aside for pool, but we’re giving up on that dream, we're going a different direction.” They can decide that at that point in time,” Wright said.
At the end of the discussion, council carried the motion to direct the clerk to prepare a by-law for the Oct. 23 council meeting.