Ally Lewis

Budgets, meetings, budget season, operating and capital. You may have been hearing those words a lot lately if you’ve been keeping up with Council.

It’s that time of year again in municipal government where the Town must figure out what next year and beyond looks like financially. There are a lot of things to consider and keep in mind when drafting the municipal budget, and I sat down with Treasurer Dawn Galusha and Deputy Treasurer Penny Hutton, to help understand what the budget process really looks like.

The first item on the to-do list in treasury is to create the budget schedule. Typically, this is a process that is tried and true for the Town of Fort Frances, but this year is different.

“This year involved a lot of research on Strong Mayor Powers,” said Dawn Galusha. There’s another phrase you may have become familiar with in the past year or so – “Strong Mayor Powers”. These were granted to over a hundred municipalities in Ontario, including the Town of Fort Frances, on May 1^st of this year. These new powers have an impact on the budgeting process, and regulations outlined in O. Reg 530/22 need to be followed. “Typically, the timeline for the budget process is early September to late March, but the mayor has veto powers that can impact that timeline.”

Putting Strong Mayor Powers aside, Treasury considers the influx of meetings to be among the most difficult parts of the budget process. Each department needs to be consulted with to identify their needs for the capital budget, and the amount of time needed for discussion varies from department to department.

But it’s not all about meetings, schedules and departments; there is also Council and residents to consider. “We have to balance the needs of council and community, while trying to make everyone happy,” Galusha told me. “We have to consider the future, determine needs versus wants and are those things achievable for this year, and time – do we have enough? Things like grant applications can take a lot of time.”

There are many moving pieces to putting a budget together, and it takes a lot of hard work from a small team of people. Something to keep in mind during this process is that the budget is for the entire town. “We are trying to manage and meet the needs of the community, and we try to do it all within manageable tax rates.” From the time you get up in the morning to the time you go to bed, you will have used a municipal service provided by the Town, and it all has to be considered in the budget.

More information on the budget process for the Town of Fort Frances can be found on the Finance & Taxes page of the Town website, or you can watch the September 8, 2025 Regular Meeting of Council on the Town YouTube channel.