The City of Flin Flon has never, to my knowledge, claimed that securing a funding deal with area cottagers would remedy all of its financial woes.
Nonetheless, this impression still seems to exist in the public at large as municipal finances grow increasingly strained.
The numbers alone contradict this sentiment.
As reported earlier in this edition of The Reminder, the city has just rejected a tentative deal from cottagers that would have netted municipal coffers an estimated $65,000 to $70,000 a year.
The city instead wants a deal that would net it between $211,250 and $227,500, if we apply the same math as the first estimate to the city’s most recent offer to cottagers.
The cottagers’ now-rejected offer would amount to just 0.5 to 0.6 per cent of the city’s total budgeted spending in 2014. The city’s quite-likely-to-be-rejected offer would equate to only 1.7 to 1.8 per cent of spending.
Raindrops
In a city where spending is budgeted to hit $12.6 million this year, and may very well surpass $13 million, the sorts of figures being tossed around in this debate are raindrops in an ocean.
The city has a right to expect some sort of financial support if it is to again deploy firefighters to cottage country. More debatable is the question of whether non-residents should help fund other services in a municipality where they do not reside.
Unless this whole thing leads to annexation – surely to be a long, contentious process with a controversy-averse provincial government having the final say – the city’s financial challenges will remain very much alive.
