Even with emergency cash, services in Fauquier-Strickland to be ‘bare bones’

Fauquier-Strickland residents learned how $300,000 in emergency provincial funding will keep the township afloat at a special council meeting Thursday evening.

A special meeting July 31 gave Fauquier-Strickland residents a chance to hear the details of how the municipality will manage with $300,000 in emergency funds from the province.

The community was facing an end to municipal services Aug. 1 after racking up operating deficits of $2.5 million and accumulated debts of $3 million. Lines of credit had also been exhausted.

A three-month bailout from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing will allow the township time to come up with a long-term plan. Minister Robert Flack announced the conditional funding in a letter just before the Aug. 1 deadline.

For the first time since the news broke about the financial crisis, residents at the July 31 meeting had a chance to speak on the situation.

“Services … are still going to be bare bones for the foreseeable future,” Shannon Pawlikowski, director of municipal services, told the crowd.

“If you read the minister’s letter, the minister does expect council to adopt a budget that meets the municipality’s needs and reflects the fiscal responsibility for the expenses the municipality has.”

Pawlikowski said there will be ongoing reporting requirements to the ministry, including every account or bill the municipality pays in the next three months.

The emergency funding is for operating expenses only, including salaries for the three remaining municipal employees in Fauquier-Strickland.

“This is an interim financing that they’re providing to give us some breathing room and for the ministry to look over the documents that were provided to them so that they can look at medium and long-term solutions,” Pawlikowski said.

Residents were told that “volunteer firefighters will still be operating for the foreseeable future.”

One resident wanted to know how the municipality got into the financial crisis in the first place.

Pawlikowski said the $2.5 million was “not a debt, that’s a lack of cash flow in funding that we had not provided over a number of years to cover the cost of operating the municipality.”

“We’ve got to the point where our infrastructure is failing, or our equipment is out-of-date, and we don’t have any funds to pay for anything. This is why we’re in the state that we’re in,” she said.

Pawlikowski said laid-off workers include a facilities cleaner, a part-time employee at the landfill site, an equipment operator and an office administrative worker.

One resident called the situation “corruption” and demanded a new election.

“We need to change management to be able to fix this. We can’t move forward if we’re just going to make the same mistakes with the same people in charge.”

In response, Pawlikowski said the current council was elected in 2022 and that the “$2.5 million deficit predates this council.”

Several people in the crowd directed their anger and frustration at Mayor Madelaine Tremblay.

Tremblay said there are five people at the council table who make all the decisions.

“We’re five, we all have one vote,” she said.

“So out of five, I have only one vote,” she said, reminding the crowd she is not a full-time mayor and overseeing the financial books is not her job, but rather a municipal employee’s job.

Residents in Fauquier-Strickland will find out how much their taxes are increasing by Aug. 31, the provincially imposed deadline for a new budget.

“We’ll try to find a solution for the tax rate that is reasonable and then we’ll do our best to work all together and with the ministry,” Tremblay said.

The next council meeting is scheduled for today, Aug 5, where there will be a presentation on solutions for debt relief.