Time to Dig Deep

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There was a comment on Thursday about the amount and cost of Town debt so I decided to track down that information along with another couple of nuggets of interest, that being wages and benefits and the amounts recovered by the General Tax Levy. The trick, when looking into info like this is to not get overwhelmed by plethora of information. Remember Joe Friday, " just the facts M’am".

Just the facts!

Let’s start with the debt or mortgage on our fixed assets. Back in 2006 the Town owed $5.314M and in 2006 an additional $1.5M was borrowed. This was probably to finish the Theatre and Town Hall renovations. Is there anyone out there willing to go on the record to say that the theatre and the Town Hall reno’s were a mistake. Some of this might also have been used to acquire the Rivermill Park.

In 2007 another $1.34M was added the total debt and after the regular payments on the debt we owed $6.350M at December 31, 2007. (Reno’s, park, fire trucks?)

In 2010, $9.0M was borrowed to pay for the G8 capital items, bringing our total debt to $13.376M at December 31, 2010 and in 2011 we paid a nice chunk off so that at December 31, 2011 we only owed $12.312M. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that the debt is at various low interest rates and even the $9.0M mortgage has rates varying from 1.1% to 5.1%. You don’t want to build monuments when interest rates are at 20%.

Town Staff.... Other duties as assigned!

What does it cost to finance this debt. In 2006 the interest on the $5.314M in debt was about $254,000 and in 2011 the interest on the $13.0M in debt was $572,000.

For the record here is the detailed interest history; 2006 - $254K, 2007 - $287K, 2008 - $434K, 2009 - $319K, 2010 - $390K and 2011 - $572K.

On Monday I’ll tackle (go Argos go) the issue of wages and benefits and just to let you in on a little secret they have risen, since 2006, by 25% above the CPI adjusted 2006 base numbers. Ask your favourite Town employee if they have received 25% above their annual cost of living adjustment since 2006. Where did the money go? You know where. You’ll want to check this one out.