The mayor of Chatham-Kent is hopeful upper levels of government will soon have cash to offset municipal deficits caused by COVID-19.
The budget deficit in CK is currently around the $3 million mark and Mayor Darrin Canniff is waiting for an announcement from the federal and provincial governments in a few weeks.
Canniff said he was assured by the Premier of Ontario in a conference call on Wednesday that funding is coming to help municipalities. The mayor said municipalities can't run deficits and mayors across the province have been pushing for some emergency relief for a while.
"We're expecting to hear something in the next few weeks and mentally we've been thinking August to hear something but it's been very much a push to say we need that funding," he added.
Canniff said residents cannot wait any longer and municipalities need immediate financial support to cover lost revenue and additional costs caused by the COVID-19 crisis, otherwise services could be cut or taxes could increase.
"We're very hopeful there will be a significant amount of money but we just don't know and we'll see when the dollar value gets here to see what it's going to cover," the mayor added.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is asking for at least $10 billion in emergency relief for Canadian municipalities to be funded 100 per cent by the federal and provincial governments.
Meanwhile, CK CAO Don Shropshire said the municipality has so far received 103 applications for the Small Business Recovery Grant. He said the total amount of the requests is not known yet but details should be available in a couple of weeks after the grants are reviewed. Shropshire added the program may be extended and topped-up depending on the findings.
