Niagara conservation authority cleans up management, but wants more money

A surprising funding budget request from the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority (NPCA) has revealed millions of untracked Hamilton tax dollars, “casual management” practices and a loose 14-year funding agreement that new authority management say shouldn’t even have existed this long.

The NPCA presented to Hamilton city councillors on Tuesday with a levy request nearly three times the usual amount. The city thought it would pay the authority $513,473 for 2015, but NPCA officials are asking for $1.2 million.

The residents of Hamilton are being victimized by the NPCA’s incompetence.- Coun. Sam Merulla

The NPCA is trying to correct an agreement that shouldn’t have existed this long in the first place, said Carmen D’Angelo, the NPCA’s new CAO. Under the provincial funding formula, Hamilton should pay according to the percentage of land in the watershed, as opposed to the previous one based on the number of taxpayers in the watershed.

But councillors were troubled by some of D’Angelo’s other revelations. NPCA has brought in a raft of new management in recent months to correct what chair Bruce Timms calls “casual management” practices.

The city has paid $2.95 million in capital dollars to the NPCA since 2006, but the authority has no idea how much of that money actually went to Hamilton projects, said D’Angelo, who is a former manager with Hamilton EMS. And about $1.2 million of that was shifted to the operating budget instead.

NPCA can’t find documentation that Haldimand County and the Niagara Region were party to the agreement, which is necessary for it to follow provincial regulation, D’Angelo said.

As well, the levy reapportionment means that the Niagara region will see a reduction of $282,824, while Hamilton’s will go up $686,504. Hamilton, meanwhile, only has two seats on the 15-member board, while Niagara has 12. D’Angelo was one of Hamilton’s representatives until January 2014.

I listened with great interest and I tried to keep a straight face.- Coun. Chad Collins

As well, the city only learned of the new budget ask in December.

Councillors were upset.

“The residents of Hamilton are being victimized by the NPCA’s incompetence,” Coun. Sam Merulla of Ward 4 said.

“I could never support this type of endeavour and frankly, I’m insulted it’s even being suggested.”

Coun. Chad Collins of Ward 5 was already prepared to appeal the levy to the Lands and Mines Commissioner, which is the only recourse the city has with a conservation authority levy.

The NPCA will meet with Haldimand and Niagara in the next two weeks and ask for a year-long extension of the existing agreement to work with Hamilton. The conservation authority board will discuss it on Feb. 18.

But Collins remained unsettled.

“I listened with great interest and I tried to keep a straight face, Carmen, as I listened to the assumptions on this file,” he said.

It’s a hard message for me to deliver here, that the legislation is clear and hasn’t been followed.- Carmen D'Angelo, Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority

“Does it not seem strange that so many staffers with four or five organizations and the representatives, of which you were one of them for a number of years, would buy into a system that was supposed to be a one-year pilot?”

D’Angelo admitted that it was hard to swallow.

“It’s a hard message for me to deliver here, that the legislation is clear and hasn’t been followed,” he said.

The new NPCA management is cleaning up the authority’s administrative and book-keeping practices, D’Angelo said. But part of that correction is the new levy ask.

If the board and the parties don't agree to extending the current arrangement for a year, Collins will introduce his motion to appeal the levy.