The Blue Mountains council has asked its two conservation authorities to try to stick to a 2.5 per cent budget increase in 2024.
The CAOs of the Grey Sauble Conservation Authority (Tim Lanthier) and the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority (Doug Hevenor) made presentations to council at its meeting on Nov. 20. Both presented overviews of authority operations and mandates, but the prime topic of the two conversations were the budgets proposed for the two conservation authorities in 2024.
Both authorities recently released and circulated their draft budgets to gather comments and input from member municipalities.
The message from The Blue Mountains council was clear: lower the budget impact to 2.5 per cent if possible.
The draft 2024 budget for the Grey Sauble Conservation Authority includes an increase of approximately five per cent over 2023. That would mean the Blue Mountains would rise by $27,986 to $489,157.
The Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority’s draft budget is to rise approximately 14 per cent over 2023. The Blue Mountains share (The Blue Mountains is responsible for 1.45 per cent of the total) would rise $6,654 to a total of $48,492.
Deputy Mayor Peter Bordingon said he could not support the increases as presented, seeing as the town itself set a target of a 2.5 per cent increase in 2024.
Council subsequently passed two resolutions asking that the town’s representatives on the two authorities (councillors June Porter and Alex Maxwell) to work with town staff and authority staff in an attempt to limit the 2024 increases to 2.5 per cent.
“We’re trying to manage our own budget at 2.5 per cent and we have a huge increase at the regional level (Grey County). To treat (the conservation authorities) equally is fair,” Bordignon said in an interview after the presentations. “You have to look at the year-over-year increase. You have to look at it in its totality.”
