Work is underway inside the second-largest local government in Ontario to set and finalize what is likely its last-ever budget before the 49-year-old institution is dissolved.
Questions, however, remain about how Peel Region’s services will be divvied up into the three separate municipalities of Brampton, Caledon and Mississauga.
The Region of Peel began deliberating its 2024 budget on Thursday, with plans set out in provincial laws for it to be dissolved by early 2025 looming large.
“Bill 112 has definitely had a significant impact on Peel, especially our ability and our financial flexibility,” Davinder Valeri, Region of Peel’s chief financial officer, said.
The region’s annual budget is worth almost $6 billion: it runs Ontario’s second-largest paramedic service, its second-largest police force and its second-largest public health unit, among other responsibilities.
“Peel is a big deal,” said Gary Kent, the region’s CAO.
The region’s proposed budget, however, is mired in confusion, with staff unclear on what will come at the end of 2024, ahead of the planned end of the Region of Peel on Jan. 1, 2025.
Early work to dissolve the region is underway by a transition board but no public decisions have been made on which of the region’s services will be taken on by local councils.
The future of staff beyond Dec. 31, 2024, and who they might work for has also not been resolved. The cost of splitting the region is still to be determined.
“There’s been no discussion — at this stage, they’re trying to figure out what services go where and some services will not go to the local municipalities, some will continue to be delivered at (regional) scale,” Kent said.
Who takes on the debt?
Peel is currently considering a property tax increase of more than 10 per cent, a number that doesn’t include the amount of money needed to manage its dissolution. Staff hope a contingency fund of around $100 million can be used to cover that.
The proposed budget includes $6.5 million to expand homelessness support, almost $87 million for policing and $13.2 million for an infrastructure levy. The numbers will not be final until councillors vote to accept them after deliberations.
Peel has also stopped taking on debt to build new projects because senior staff say it would be “unwise” to try to find funding with uncertainty around who owns what in the region.
“Debt’s a big deal,” Kent said.
The question of who is responsible for the region’s $1.6-billion debt tab after Jan. 1, 2025, is yet to be answered, according to the region’s top finance staffer.
“Where will this debt go and who will be the successor to take on this debt?” Valeri asked.
Transition process
Work on the transition itself appears to be in its early stages.
Kent said the transition board — a five-person team tasked with working out how Peel will be split up — has not yet hired any consultants and is relying on regional staff to do work for them.
“It’s very difficult to impart the knowledge and experience of people who have worked in the sector for 30 years to people who have not,” he said.
A total of 70 meetings between working groups looking to discuss the split of 12 services have been scheduled from November to March. The region also sent more than 4,000 pages of notes to both local municipalities and the board itself.
The transition board is set to invoice Peel for its costs as work on dissolution gets underway in earnest. Staff said the region has not yet received any invoices from the board.
Global News sent a series of questions to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, including if the Ford government will help pay for transition costs. No response was received in time for publication.
The lack of clarity means staff in Peel say they have written a budget that broadly plans for business as usual, while staff juggle the job of transition and delivering day-to-day services.
“We’ve got no other information to make decisions on,” Kent said. “And we do have to set a budget to raise the tax bill, so this is the best information that we’ve got.”
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