The provincial government is holding Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund (OMPF) money from Minden Hills, as the township plays catch-up on financial statements from 2024 and 2025.
The OMPF is the province’s main general assistance grant to municipalities. The township received an allocation of $2,044,000 for the 2025 budget year. It has not received money yet for the 2026 budget year.
CAO Cynthia Fletcher and director of finance, Zack Drinkwalter, addressed the issue during an interview with The Highlander last Wednesday (July 8).
The municipality is required to have audited financial statements every year; and part of those statements include an FIR (financial information return). Drinkwalter said it is “more or less a tax return for the municipality. It’s reporting all your information to the ministry in a format that they utilize for data collection.”
The treasurer said with staff turnover in the finance department over the past couple of years, “the audits never came to completion. There hasn’t been a lot of follow-through just with the changeover.” He only joined the township in time for 2026 budget deliberations and added the municipality has a new audit team this year – having given the contract to Huntsvillebased Pahapill and Associates Chartered Accountants.
“So, we’re catching up now. We’re currently underway with our audit and our FIR so we’re in the process of it right now but it does take a bit of time.”
Drinkwalter said Pahapill is currently working on 2024, “and as soon as that’s wrapped up, will be rolling into 2025, which is just about complete now as far as our work goes, but we will need the audit still.”
Fletcher said, “we need to do the 2024 audit, and put the 2024 FIR in place. At this point, what the province is saying is they’re holding the (OMPF) funding until that happens and we anticipate we’ll be fully caught up this fall.”
The Highlander asked if the lack of funding would impact operations. However, Drinkwalter replied, “as far as our operations go, nothing will change.
Municipalities are 90 per cent funded through tax dollars so the OMPF funding, while it’s part of our revenue, isn’t a big part of our revenue, similar to all municipalities.”
Asked if this was an unusual occurrence for a township, Fletcher said, “it’s not typical.”
Drinkwalter said they are in constant communication with the province.
“They’ve let us know once we get our FIR submitted, then our funding will be released but we’re in talks with the province, we’re always in talks with the province.”
Fletcher added, “we recognize that we need to get caught up and that’s our intention. It’s just been the lack of continuity of a treasurer, which is a very specific position and skillset in a municipality. The lack of continuity has made us fall behind. We now have our treasurer on board, and it’s been his main focus to get us caught up, and we intend to be fully caught up this fall.”
Councillor-at-large Tammy McKelvey, who is a former municipal treasurer, told the What the Haliburton podcast June 30 she believes Drinkwalter, “will be able to get this under control, but it has to be made a priority. This is serious. The province gives us OMPF funding. It’s paid out in four instalments. It’s a big chunk of change. It’s over $2 million for us. They have frozen it, so we haven’t received our instalments for 2026.”
