FORT FRANCES, Ont. -- As budget season continues across the Northwest, members of Fort Frances council are sitting down to look at both its operating and capital budgets.
This year the primary focus is on the aging infrastructure in the Fort Frances community.
CAO Doug Brown says councillors and administration are looking at about $31 million for the community’s 2018 budget.
“The capital budget will come in somewhere around $10 million, the operations around $21 million,” Brown said.
The main goal is to have a balanced budget and making sure the wants and needs of the municipality are covered appropriately.
According to Brown, 50 per cent of the town’s revenue comes from taxpayers in the community.
“We basically went through the capital budget, when they presented the document on Jan. 5 it was worth about $18 million. I’m going to round the numbers up,” Brown said.
“We went through what administration from what administration from Jan. 5 prioritized, then we went down and had a high, medium and low and had an opportunity last September to submit what they thought had to be done in the community…infrastructure stuff.”
Brown said those infrastructure projects include fixing up roads in the community and expanding upon the improvements made to the 200 block of Scott Street further into the 300 block.
As well as an overhaul of the overpass near the east entrance to the town.
Brown added administration is looking for funding from higher levels of government, through connecting link funding for that project.
“That structure is 35-years-old. It’s time for the first rebuild, so we’ve put in two applications that we were denied last year in 2017,” he said.
“We are thinking we’re going to see funding announcements during the Ontario Good Roads Association’s general conference in February, so we should know about that. We have to kick in 10 per cent, where 90 per cent is funded by MTO.”
Brown said the second funding application is for a water main to provide fire protection to that area.
Brown added that on Feb. 20 council will be reviewing the budget and hopes to have it completed sometime in April.
(Northwest Newsweek)
