by Tom Sasvari
MANITOULIN—With another projected deficit this year of over $45,000, the Manitoulin Provincial Offences Board of Management (POA) is calling on the province of Ontario to provide financial help or take back responsibility for POA.
“What we are telling the province is that we need help. Municipalities can’t afford to keep paying for it,” stated Derek Stephens, chair of the POA board of management. “The government turned the responsibility for POA over to us as municipalities with whatever deficit there was at the time, I don’t know. They said there was an ‘x’ amount of revenue dollars that POA could collect in back fines (for POA tickets) from people that owe fines. But how do you get them?”
“We have had a collection agency trying to get people to pay the fines but they can’t collect them either. So, the POA have all these fines on the books that look like revenues, but they aren’t until the fines are collected.”
“And the problem with OPP officers ticketing people who have driving offences is that they are too busy dealing with the major crimes like murders and drug cases that have been taking place on the Island,” said Mr. Stephens. “So, we are losing in that way too.”
“And a lot of the people that are getting the tickets are going to court on the tickets, which costs the POA four times the normal process,” said Mr. Stephens. “And for these cases we have to pay for the judge, prosecutor, court clerk, court guard and the police officer. We aren’t going to even make back the money owed on the fine. And now municipalities have bylaw officers who are giving out tickets for fines and they are having trouble collecting the fines as well.”
“And we can’t set the court costs because they are set by the province,” said Mr. Stephens. “We thought the past few years the problem with fines being imposed and collected was due to COVID-19, because there weren’t as many people out on the roads and fewer tickets were being handed out.”
Mr. Stephens said the POA had been looking at a substantial deficit in its budget last year, but it ended up not being as large as had been forecast. “But it still cost municipalities because we had to go to the municipalities for financial help to help pay the (POA) employees.”
“I don’t think it is sustainable,” stated Mr. Stephens.
POA manager Pam Fogal told The Expositor, “Our projected deficit in the POA 2023 budget is over $45,000. We had a huge deficit projected last year, and we ended up with a loss, but did a lot better than had been forecast.” POA budget deficits, “are a trend in the area. Other POAs are having the same problems.”
“The problem is we know we have more enforcement (policing) on the Island but they have larger issues to deal with these days with investigations of drug busts and murders,” said Ms. Fogal. “We are projecting a deficit in our budget this year because we have 12 days of special trials scheduled for 2023 which have substantial extra costs associated with it. And the cost of these trials are huge.”
At the March 7 POA board meeting, the 2023 budget was adopted as presented by the board, further that staff invoices the municipal partners for their share of the 2022 deficit, and further that staff submit a letter to the province to strongly push that they offer financial assistance or they can resume the responsibility for provincial offences.
At a Gore Bay council meeting last week, councillor Terry Olmstead, a member of the POA board told council, “The POA needs over $45,000. It’s the same everywhere.”
“The POA downloading onto the municipalities from the province is not working out,” stated Mayor Ron Lane, prior to council approving the POA budget and approval of paying its share of the deficit.
