Northumberland County Councillors Debate Ways to Cut Costs

Pete Fisher
6 hours ago
• Categories: City Hall

By Cecilia Nasmith/Northumberland 89.7 FM/Today’s Northumberland
Thursday’s special meeting of Northumberland County council was to find ways of saving money going forward resulted in a number of ideas that might be pursued.

Warden Brian Ostrander stressed that discussions undertaken at this meeting will not affect the 2025 levy.

“We are talking about future days and how best to absorb the impact moving forward,” Ostrander told councillors.

“Nothing you do today will have an impact on the 2025 budget except to start the process moving forward.”

Of the $79.8-million tax levy for 2025, the top five departments in terms of their share of that levy are Transportation ($22-million or 30%), Golden Plough Lodge ($11-million or 14%), Social Services ($10.6-million or 14%), Northumberland Paramedics ($10-million or 13%) and Waste ($6.8-million or 9%)
A staff report with an exhaustive listing of departments and services was presented, categorized into such areas as mandated services, non-mandated services that nevertheless taxpayers have grown to expect and lower-tier municipalities do not provide, and core services that are essential in terms of such considerations as economic well-being and governance.

There was also a listing of shared services (and which municipalities take advantage of which services), as well as four “discretionary external transfers” that council at some point discussed and approved – $250,000 annually in capital funding for the county’s two hospitals until 2026, $513,213 to an outside vendor for fire dispatch for member municipalities, up to $275,000 to Cobourg to help with court-security costs, and an annual $100,000 for the Art Gallery of Northumberland.

Deputy Warden Olena Hankivsky asked about staffing in terms of how Northumberland compares with other counties of similar size. Chief Administrative Officer Jennifer Moore said that historically, whenever they gather these data and set them against comparitor municipalities, Northumberland has about 20% less staffing on both a per-capita and a per-household basis.

Specifically, Northumberland comes second-to-last on the list compiled in 2024. In terms of number of employees per capita, the highest number is 27 and Northumberland is 5.3. In terms of number of employees per dwelling, the highest number is 60 and Northumberland is 13.3.

Sharing services, while a good concept, depends on both sides wanting such an arrangement. While most of the municipalities, for example, have such an arrangement with the county for IT services, the Town of Cobourg and Municipality of Brighton prefer to take care of these needs for themselves. The topic comes up frequently when the county’s CAOs have one of their regular meetings, and there’s always a willingness to consider new options.

“It has to be on a cost-effective basis and a mutual benefit,” Moore summed up.

Following an adjournment for a closed session, there was some discussion about RTO (Regional Tourism Organization) 8, a joint Kawartha Lakes-Northumberland tourism-promotion initiative, and what value the county is getting from it.

“There was concern that we as a county are the primary funder of tourism drivers and economic-development pursuits,” Ostrander said.

Trent Hills Councillor Bob Crate said that while his area has a number of very successful tourism initiatives, he saw little evidence of the organization’s work up in his municipality.

There is an Economic Development, Tourism, Land Use Planning Committee meeting next week, Ostrander pointed out, asking staff to prepare a quick report on this matter in advance of the meeting.