There’s a two million dollar question haunting the City of Owen Sound.
The city hasn’t been told it will happen — but the possibility exists that the province will slash nearly two million from payments it currently provides to Owen Sound.
The grants are made through the Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund.
But changes to the formula have left Owen Sound in a precarious position — too large to receive funding available to rural or small urban municipalities, yet too small to qualify for large urban funding.
Mayor Ruth Lovell Stanners is worried about and timing and how it may leave the city particularly vulnerable.
It’s expected that if the province does yank the funding, it’ll happen right before city budget deliberations, putting to waste all the pre-budget work being done by staff.
And it’ll also leave city ratepayers looking at a tax hike in the neighbourhood of 10 per cent.
Lovell Stanners is particularly worried this year about the loss of funding because Ontario is facing a record deficit of nearly 25 billion dollars.