David Free and Meaford SUMMARY OF MEAFORD DEEP ROOTED FINANCIAL PROBLEMS

Meaford has been described by myself on several occasions as fragile with respect to its ability to survive the projects essentially imposed by its special interest groups. All budget presentations, dialogue with the public and Council also described Meaford as a Financial Mess!

Much work was done to correct deep rooted problems in 2005, 2006 and 2007 however, there was nothing that could save the municipality from runaway projects, bad structure, financial incompetence, inadequate resources and volatile politics.

Meaford Hall was a project that the community could not remotely afford. It could not afford the debt servicing or its operational deficits. This was a common message in all financial reporting and budgets since 2005. Regardless the runaway project has been the source of the community and corporations problems pitting people against one another over an old building that should have been demolished. The Meaford Hall project was 20% over budget ($1,000,000) and 18 months behind schedule. And while other communities struggle to keep basic municipal services Meaford was building a luxury building to serve an arts community that could not or would not pay market price. All of this at the expense of critical infrastructure deteriorating before our eyes.

Regardless the Hall was built and added cost($600,000 in operational costs per year), distractions and the need for unique management and attention for the municipality. This project was approved by the Gerald Short Council and could have and should have been over turned under the Wally Reif Council. There were no supporting reports that provided a comprehensive cost model to the municipality nor was there information identifying its overall financial and administrative impact. Any modest amount of analysis before the project would have indicated a possible 25% to 40% increase in taxes that might have kept the project from moving forward.

Significant professional effort was engaged to improve the operational position of the Meaford Hall. Benchmarking other municipal theater facilities clearly indicated significant new costs were going to be added consequently to be supported by taxation. What was worse for the community a special interest group believed that they should be able to have exclusive use of the hall for almost no cost.

If all of the above was not bad enough, Council had directed and sustained its direction over 4 years to keep taxes increase to a zero level pressured by ratepayer associations. The politicians wanted the fiscal accolades but they did not want the fiscal impacts of their direction which simply more debt. In addition to all of this, Meaford financial systems were in ruin. General ledgers did not contain bank accounts, reserves or many of the operational entities. How any auditor could do an audit was incomprehensible. What was later revealed that financial audits since amalgamation were and remain materially misstated.

During budget deliberations and reports to Council, Meaford's situation was often to referred to as the "perfect financial storm". Lots of project, no funding, no reporting, and no interest to take drastic steps correct the situation. The politicians wanted to bask in the zero tax increase accomplishment however, they did not want to acknowledge the longer term financial impacts of their mandate.