Lisa Hall, the deputy clerk-treasurer of Faraday Township presented the 2023 draft budget to the township council at their meeting on March 1. Hall comments on this budget presentation to council, which projects a 1.43 per cent tax increase and says that the public meeting for the final budget passage should occur sometime in April.

Hall presented her report on the 2023 draft budget to Faraday Township council at their March 1 meeting at the Faraday municipal office at 9 a.m. Hall’s report outlined some objectives that needed to be achieved over the next year, including capital projects like the recommended renovations to the fire hall (from the Fire Energy Audit and Feasibility Study and started per RFQ FD01-2022), the purchase of the pumper/tanker (using fire reserve and capital reserve), the siding on the community centre (to be done with the work on the fire hall), road work on Lower Faraday Road (two sections of the road using $370,000 from the Canadian Community Building Fund, $100,000 from OCIF and $550,000 from working capital), Paudash School Road (using $50,000 from capital reserve), the purchase of a sand/salt storage shed (using $345,000 from capital reserve/previously accounted for in 2020 and 2021 budgets) and the acquisition of the ¾ tonne truck (using $80,000 from capital reserve).

Insurance for the township is estimated to increase approximately 10 per cent over 2022.

Faraday also pledged to donate $500,000 to the Back the CAT campaign, which will come out of the township capital reserves.

A $10,000 request from the Town of Bancroft for the community centre has not yet been factored into the budget.

According to Hall, this draft budget includes total addition to the reserves in the amount of $460,000.

“After completing the proposed budget, I have calculated that the township has $7,312,937.21 in reserves,” she said in her report.

Total expenditures for the 2023 draft budget are projected to be $6,641,899, which is $1,801,958.37 higher than the $4,601,272.63 from the actual 2022 budget.

Total revenues for the 2023 draft budget are projected to be $3,820,595 which is $1,683,987.23 higher than the 2022 actual budgetary figure, which was $1,966,059.77.

Overall, in this draft budget, Hall was proposing a tax increase of 1.43 per cent.

“At this time, we do not have the [Hastings] County levy. As per the province, there will be no change to the school board levies for 2023,” she said in her report.

While council was impressed by the proposed 1.43 per cent tax increase, they asked about how to achieve a 0 per cent tax increase to lessen the economic burden on Faraday ratepayers. In order to reach that 0 per cent tax increase, Hall told council that approximately $58,000 would need to be cut from items in the budget or by using the reserves to make this happen.

Hall told The Bancroft Times on March 2 that she thought the presentation of her report on the 2023 draft budget went well.

“Council tries to prevent any large tax increases but a zero per cent increase is difficult to accomplish with continually rising costs. Council is satisfied with the increase of 1.43 per cent, but their final decision will be made at a public meeting to pass the budget,” she says. “The public meeting for the budget will hopefully be held sometime in April, once the [Hastings] County budget is completed.”

Michael Riley, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Bancroft Times