North Bay’s Mayor has made the pitch for sustainable funding to municipalities.
Al McDonald presented the idea to the infrastructure minister at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference in Ottawa.
McDonald says this model would replace the grants system.
McDonald says knowing how much money senior government will give a town or city each year makes it easier for them to budget on projects.
He says North Bay has a 10 year capital asset management plan where each year $30 to $40 million is spent on infrastructure.
The Mayor says some projects need engineering studies and environmental assessments.
He says municipalities spend money in both these areas to prepare for projects.
“If you don’t have money from the provincial or federal governments to help, you do all that work and it kind of sits there until money becomes available,” McDonald said.
“But if we know we have the money in advance, something like $5 million or $7 million, we can plug that right into our budget. So we know exactly how much money we’re getting and we can pick the projects we can afford to do.”
McDonald adds the sustainable funding model would be a big help to smaller municipalities that don’t have the resources to keep applying for grants.
He says grants take time to fill out and when the application is rejected the municipality spent a lot of time on something it can’t move forward.
McDonald says although the infrastructure minister was supportive of a sustainable funding model, there was no commitment at this time during the AMO conference.