Double the dollars

Shebandowan Village only has about 4.5 kilometres of road to maintain locally.

But with only 52 ratepayers footing the bill, when the unexpected arises, the coffers run dry pretty quickly.

George Histed, who volunteers on the Shebandowan Local Roads Board, said news the province plans to double its contributions to help maintain roads in unincorporated communities to $25 million annually helps the tiny community breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Histed lives in Thunder Bay but has a seasonal property in Shebandowan and says it doesn’t take much for reserves to disappear.

It’s something he knows firsthand.

“Our budget, working for this year, was $15,000. We have found out one culvert had to be replaced and our budget was totally gone with the replacement of just that one culvert,” Histed said. “This doubling of the structure that’s been committed by the province will allow us to upkeep the road and do some further enhancements which are sorely needed.”

Without the influx of cash, it would have been a much tougher go of it, he added.

“We would have gotten by, but certainly now we can enhance what projects we looked at. Instead of maybe incorporating things over a two- or three-year period, we could possibly do it now this year or next year at the latest.”

The decision, which affects about 192 local roads boards in Northern Ontario and the Parry Sound District, where the county system does not exist, returns funding to mid-1990s levels, which were slashed by the Mike Harris Conservatives.

MPP Bill Mauro (Lib., Thunder Bay-Atikokan) on Thursday said his government has been trying to return the fees back to a two-for-one ratio, with the province essentially tripling the LRB’s contribution collected from local ratepayers.

Unfortunately the recession that hit the province stalled the plan in 2007, he said.

“It’s going to allow these rural local roads board volunteers to maintain their rural road infrastructure in a much better way,” Mauro said.

“When I first met with my roads boards in 2003 and 2004 it became very apparent to me that they needed more financial support from the province. It used to be two-to-one. It was moved to one-to-one in ’95 or so. So I’ve been after this one for a long time.”

Don Quennell, chairman of the Gorham and Ware Local Roads Board, said as a bigger board they’ve had fewer issues with less provincial support, but it doesn’t mean they can’t use the extra money.

“It’s going to be huge. It’s going to help out with all our roads. Our road maintenance has gone down over the last few years. Our taxes have gone up, but to be able to maintain an even basis, our taxes are still climbing.

“So it’s going to help a lot with our local roads board, but it’s really going to help the smaller boards have the same sources of revenue that we do, because we do have some industrial sites who pay a little bit extra.

Histed said it will also allow his township to reallocate some of the gas-tax rebate to buy gravel and further enhance their roads.