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Dear Editor,
As we enter the new year one thing is certain, another year of complaining about taxes and the administrative building in Tiny.
For a municipality of its size and characteristics, Tiny has an unusually low tax rate. Our 2024 rate was $390.44 per $100k of assessment after an 8.19% increase that cost us an additional $22.86 per $100k.
Penetanguishene’s 2024 rate was $955.35 after a 5.34% increase of $48.39 or 13.27% in Tiny terms. Midland’s rate was $1,198.21 after a 4.6% increase of $52.70 or 14.46% in Tiny terms. Note, their increases were 62% and 76% higher than Tiny’s.
Queue up “but, we have no services.”
For decades, Tiny has been able to avoid providing services by letting everyone go visit the neighbours. For decades, the taxpayers of Midland and Penetanguishene (and Tay and Springwater) have been subsidizing Tiny’s low tax rate. How do we thank them? Don’t park here.
A provincial regulation has messed up this cozy little arrangement.
Tiny, along with ALL municipalities in Ontario, is required to implement Asset Management with a final deadline of July 1, 2025. It doesn’t matter who was elected. All 2022-elected councils have exactly three budget cycles (2023, 2024, 2025) to get all existing assets on track. No excuses, no deferring, no referendums. This is the reason for the big tax hikes everywhere. This is the reason for the recent issues in Tiny regarding libraries, waste management and arenas because our neighbours discovered how much they subsidize Tiny and want to be paid.
The entitled in Tiny believe they should have input, and veto power, over every line item in the budget so clearly have never bothered to read the Ontario Municipal Act. A municipality is a Crown Corporation and has employees. Like any corporation it has the right and obligation to house its employees appropriately. Administrative infrastructure is never a political issue.
A municipality exists as an extension of the provincial government to manage local land use, provide local services, grow local economies and ensure adherence to provincial legislation. In this respect, Tiny has been fumbling the ball for decades.
Poor land-use management has led to ongoing fights over beaches, a shoreline residential area that is growing and no clear vision for the settlement areas. Tiny has not managed its assets well nor provided the breadth of services it should. Tiny has allowed its economy to atrophy such that in 2023 a mere 1.1% of taxes were collected from commercial and industrial properties combined. The current council inherited this mess, they didn’t create it.
The next excuse will be “Tiny is a small town”, which it is not.
In the 2021 census, Tiny ranked 123rd in population out of 414 lower-tier and standalone municipalities with a growth of 10% since 2016. Our summer population puts us in the top 80. I urge everyone to compare Tiny to comparable municipalities and you will see Tiny always does less.
The administration building is a perfect example of Tiny incompetence.
We have a 58-year-old fully depreciated asset that has never been properly maintained to stay current. Some years ago, when bursting at the seams, Tiny installed portables instead of investing properly. Had they done the right job then we would have a different discussion now. The previous two councils failed to execute and simply punted the problem to the next. You would then expect, by this time, a nice big Building Reserve to be available to offset today’s cost. Where is it?
Touching that building now requires it to be brought up to 2025 building codes, workplace standards and accessibility standards. It must be designed to support a growing municipality through the depreciation period which may be 60 years. The fact it was let go to the point where a greenfield build is competitive to a renovation is shameful.
On the positive side, siting the new building in an area zoned “employment area” almost looks like forward thinking regarding economic development. Making the building a multi-use facility provides a community space that Tiny, unique amongst its equals, doesn’t have.
I know the protesters have struggled to get any traction with other levels of government and the press, but these are some of the reasons why. Fundamentally, this is a bunch of very privileged people complaining about the loss of a bit of their privilege. That is always going to be a tough sell.
Will MacDonald
Tiny Township (cottager)
