The Municipality of Callander has been granted over $100,000 from the Ontario government to help modernize operations within the community.
Specifically, $36,138 has been granted to implement and enhance electronic billing through the municipal website. Another $61,194 has been approved for “digital modernization,” which Callander plans to use to purchase hardware to collect water billing information and implement a municipal-wide geographic information mapping system, which can better analyze all types of data collected by the town.
The Ontario government is doling out these funds through the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, offering up to $24 million “to support the modernization of 224 small and rural municipalities across the province.”
Steve Clark, the minister of Municipal Affairs, explained that “identifying and implementing modern solutions means money is diverted away from wasteful service delivery and stays in the pocket of local taxpayers.”
The provincial government mentioned that as municipalities modernize services, the savings continue to mount, estimating that during phase one of the grants, the province gave out $11.8 million to 180 projects “and identified over $100 million in savings and efficiencies” from the investments.
“I’m really glad that we’re doing our best to take advantage of any funding that is out there, explained councillor Jordy Carr, “because I think that we can use the help wherever we can get it, and give our ratepayers a little bit of a break”
Callander’s municipal director, Ashley Bilodeau, noted these funds “will help improve the efficiencies internally for staff,” and looks forward to working toward implementing electronic billing software to the municipal website.
She also explained there are plans to “purchase a plotter to properly scan and submit building drawings to the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation,” and staff are working to improve digital storage within the municipal office and plan to “move paper files into a digital database.”
“The municipality is extremely grateful to have received modernization money,” Bilodeau said. “We had applied for various projects and although we were not successful in all, we are excited to begin implementing the ones we were successful with.”
David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
