Federal and provincial stimulus funding programs are skewing priorities, as municipalities fight to get help paying for wish-list projects they might otherwise not build.
Last week’s grant application for the Bissell Park project is a case in point.
Centre Wellington council wants to get as much federal-provincial money as possible before the stimulus grants dry up. And Bissell Park is a good deal: for an investment of $750,000, much of it likely from Slots revenue, the township ends up with a $3 million project, thanks to the grant and community partners.
But we have to question the priority. With township roads still in a dreadful state and a sewage treatment plant that needs replacing, is it good value to spend $750,000 on a park?
There’s no doubt the project being proposed is an excellent idea. Moving the Elora Festival out of the county works department salt storage shed and into a properly designed performance space is a wonderful boost to a world-class festival. Creating a professionally designed place to hold community events like the Sensational Elora Soup-Off and fundraising concerts is also a great idea.
But is it really more important than fixing streets so broken they’re more like amusement park rides? Or repairing some of the 30-plus bridges in need of work? Or building a new sewage treatment plant before developers in Elora run out of capacity?
Probably not.
But there are no stimulus grants being offered for roads, bridges or sewage plants right now. In fact, the township has applied for grants to do more work in those areas - including applying twice for the Elora sewage treatment plant - but been turned down.
The federal community adjustment fund the township has applied to for Bissell Park is intended to promote tourism and job creation. It couldn’t be used for roads and bridges.
The dilemma facing local councils is whether to apply for projects to get the funding, or use the money they have to do other work that may be just as, or more, important.
Skewing the decision-making process is the fact that matching federal-provincial grant funding is just so attractive.
In the case of Bissell Park, for less than a third of its own money, the township gets a top-of-the-line community facility - that without the grant likely won’t come about for years.
Given the choice of spending $750,000 on, say, roads, or spending $750,000 to get a $3 million facility, few councils will have the obstinate determination to turn down the possible grant funding.
But ideally, it’s not good to have grant availability driving municipal spending policy - and that’s what’s happening not just here, but all across the province.
A better way to distribute grant money would be to have municipalities prioritize their projects, and then dish out money to top priorities, whether they be roads, bridges, recreation centres or parks. In that model, the municipal staff and council drive the spending agenda.
The way it’s being done now, the provincial and federal governments are setting municipal spending policy.
In Centre Wellington, whether Bissell Park is approved for funding or not, when stimulus money dries up later this year, the Elora sewage treatment plant will still need rebuilding, roads will still be in disrepair, and there will still be 30 bridges to fix. And if Bissell Park is approved, the township will have $750,000 less to spend on that other work.