Hamilton will have to pay $1M more to the Niagara conservation authority

Hamilton taxpayers will have to pay nearly $1 million per year more to the Niagara conservation authority after the provincerejected a city appeal.

In a Dec. 21 ruling, Ontario's deputymining and lands commissioner sided with the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority (NPCA), which said Hamilton had been paying too little for years.

The NPCA dropped the bombshell in 2015 when it jacked up the city's annual levy from $513,473 to about $1.2million, although with other charges, city staff estimated the annual increase amounted to $945,000. So the city chose its only recourse an appeal.

That "was a reasonable reaction," said the decision by Marianne Orr, deputy mining and lands commissioner.

But the regulation that dictates how levies are apportioned "speaks for itself," she said. And "I have no authority to exempt the city from its requirements."

Sam Merulla, Ward 4 councillor, said city council will examine its options. Right now, it looks like the city will have to accept the ruling and pay the new levy.

"There's always the courts, but that would be foolhardy because that would simply benefit lawyers," he said.

The decision "strikes me as another black eye from the province, and it's becoming kind of a daily routine."

This is the latest chapter in a fractured relationship between the city and NPCA.

It started with that January2015 city budget meeting. That's when then-NPCA chair Bruce Timms appeared with Carmen D'Angelo, then NPCA's CAO and a one-time Hamilton appointee on the NPCA board.

Hamilton's old NPCA levy apportionment, D'Angelo said, was based on a 2000 agreement between the Niagara Region, Haldimand County and the authority.

That agreement saw Hamilton only paying based on the assessment of theparts of Hamilton that fell within the NPCAwatershed, which is mainly Glanbrook. Under the Conservation Authorities Act, the levy should bebased on the assessment of the whole city of Hamilton, including the urban area, which is assessed at higher values.

But D'Angelo said he couldn't find an evidence of the agreement, and the other two regions want to abide by provincial legislation. Haldimandand Niagara were both parties in the appeal process.

The city argued the agreement was still valid. It also asked the province to temporarily take over operations of NPCA. Last January, it asked the province for permission tooutright leave the NPCA, although Merulla says that was rejected.

The city also joined a chorus of other municipalities last year asking for a third-party audit of NPCA's finances. In October, a Queen's Park all-party public accounts committee asked the Auditor General to audit the authority.