Snowy winter hit operations budget hard; improved relief grants for 2026

By Sharon Harrison
It comes as no surprise to most that it was indeed a long, snowy winter and the County’s operations department confirmed it was also an expensive one for the municipality, using up 48 per cent of the annual operations budget in just the first three months of this year to keep roads cleared and maintained.

Along with an update on operations and maintenance activities, Thursday’s committee of the whole meeting covered the new municipal financial relief grant guidelines, and an update on what County interns Ben Hicks and Ashtyn Nauffts are up to when it comes to the municipal climate intern program.

They both outlined what their internships have involved to date, and what work they will be undertaking from now until July when the program ends. The two are working on the County’s climate action plan, doing various research, organizing the green task force and departmental review of climate action items, as well as the development of an invasive species development plan, and Earth Day events, among them.

A topic garnering much discussion around the horseshoe was a proposed new bylaw with fines and usage guidelines for the Millennium Trail. Click here for that story.

More summary highlights below:

Operational services update
Troy Gilmour, director of operational services, provided an overview of the first quarter of 2026 when it comes to the County’s operations, which takes care of snow clearing, road maintenance, waste sites and trails.

Describing it as a very busy and productive start to the first three months of the year, Gilmour said there has been a high level of service requests so far (around 700 in three months).

“Winter did present some challenges earlier this year, including more than the average snow storms, all while a salt shortage was thrown our way, but the roads were kept safe and services reliable,” noted Gilmour.

“As spring is arriving, attention shifts to construction and seasonal operations, including preparing for the Picton Habour marina opening weekend, launching the rural roads program, and preparing for cemetery management, boat launch repairs, Millennium Trail and tree management, and all our dock installation on 13 sites with 23 docks.”

Gilmour said quite a bit of the winter operations budget was used so far, with 39 weather events, as about 48 per cent of the budget has been used already in the first three months of the year.

“It is a concern, but we are monitoring it, but we’ll do our best,” he said, adding that there is still a salt shortage. “I anticipate it still being an issue going into late 2026, so we will have to monitor that and work with what we have. Fingers are crossed that we go into November and December and there’s not a lot of snow.”

Municipal Financial Relief Grant 2026 guidelines
New guidelines for the 2026 municipal financial relief grant program were revealed by the community services, programs and initiatives department. The program provides property tax and water bill credit for low-income residents to help mitigate rising costs for low-income households.

“The program does offer very meaningful support for low-income residents relative to the average bills, and we think it’s serving its purpose quite well,” explained Julianne Snepsts, programs supervisor, who said they also looked at equity of access.

“The proposed new income thresholds scale now with household size, so this corrects a gap that was in the program before where larger households, sometimes with dependant children, were being screened out because the incomes didn’t scale to household size.”

They have also added renters to the program who pay their water bill through their landlord, as well as those with leasehold arrangements where a tax bill is paid through a landlord (i.e. Wellington on the Lake).

“We also wanted to ensure that the guidelines were focusing the support of this program on those who needed it most, so the proposed enhanced support stream prioritizes households with the lowest income by offering larger grants for that stream,” where Snepsts said they expect it will shift about 100 households from the standard stream to the enhanced stream.

The 2026 County budget for this program is $473,000.

Councillor Janice Maynard said she has a hard time justifying the spend year-over-year when there are other programs that people could, and should, be applying for.

“I don’t want to be the grinch, but when we have so many things to look after… we need to make sure that the province in particular is taking care of their responsibilities… it’s only going to get worse and then the taxpayers of the County will have more and more people than are struggling,” expressed Maynard. “It’s like enabling, I just don’t want to be the enabler.”

Calling it a visionary program and a critical housing retention program, councillor Kate MacNaughton said it is probably the best housing program that the County has got because it prevents loss of housing.

“Over years, it has continued to allow us to raise the taxes that we need without pushing people out of the County because their costs are becoming too high,” said MacNaughton. “I don’t think it should be abandoned. This program is functionally paid for in a sense by the late fees and the interest that poor income households remit to the County which is about three-quarters of a million dollars every year.”

Full details and reports of the items discussed at the April 9 committee of the whole meeting can be found on the corresponding agenda on the County’s website, along the meeting recording.