We’re starting to see how things will be as the rest of the year goes on and the provincial government tries to get itself out of debt.
Provincial and federal officials have made a big show of saying they are not going to raise taxes, nor make drastic spending cuts - the two things they need to do to recover some financial equilibrium.
Since the decision to pour money into the economy at the start of the recession in an attempt to stimulate recovery, both the provincial and federal governments have run up large deficits. They’ve spent more than they can possibly cover in revenue - most of which they get from taxation.
In an attempt to start cutting back on the deficit, they’ve already announced some budgeting is going to be tightened.
They can’t come right out and say they’re going to cut programs, because finance ministers have already promised they won’t do that.
But this month, the local health unit has found out that instead of getting a 4.5 percent increase in funding from the province, it will have to make do with a maximum of 3 percent.
That’s prompted layoffs and program cuts that directly affect local public health services.
In a similar move, the province announced recently it would change how the large municipal partnership grant would be administered, in effect changing the definition so that Centre Wellington (among others) would receive more than $1 million less in provincial money. Although the township has received the grant this year, the local council is bracing for the cut to take effect again in the future.
In another case, the province has decided to stop  funding for Best Start early childhood education programs. That’s left Wellington County councillors in the difficult position of deciding between cancelling the programs or stepping in and providing funding.
There is an insidious pattern in all of this. In each case, although the real reason for layoffs, program cuts, and decreased service lies with provincial government politicians, it’s local officials who will be blamed for the cutbacks.
Federal finance officials cut transfers to provincial governments with platitudes like living within their means and belt-tightening, and their provincial counterparts trim increases, step out of program funding, and cut back in turn, arguing they’re only tightening the budget to cut back on debt.
At the end of the line lies the local municipality, council, or taxpayer who has to deal with what becomes a concrete funding shortfall by living with reduced services, longer lineups, fewer choices in programming and so on.
The irony in all this is that locally, for example, the province has given the area enough stimulus funding for roads, recreation and other projects to pick up the funding shortfall the health unit is experiencing.
But that’s different.
In the coming years as programming thins even more and funding is cut back even more harshly, we wonder whether these gifts of paved roads, new recreation centres, and so on will look as attractive as they do now.