The Mayor of Burk’s Falls is calling on Almaguin Community Economic Development (ACED) to revisit its membership formula.
Chris Hope made the suggestion at the Jan. 23 ACED board meeting where he explained why his town council served one year's notice it was leaving the economic development organization. The village paid the organization nearly $20,000 for its 2025 membership.
“ACED is doing great and important work promoting the Almaguin Highlands,” Hope told the board members.
However, Hope said his community is facing “big spending pressures on infrastructure.”
He says the village is looking at several studies that are already at $600,000, road repairs are coming up, a water pump costs the community $80,000 and the health care centre always requires attention.
Hope said in the grand scheme of things the nearly $20,000 Burk’s Falls is paying this year to be part of ACED may not seem like a lot of money. But he said it is a significant amount when a municipality has numerous infrastructure costs to consider.
Hope said $20,000 impacts Burk’s Falls property taxes by about 1.5 per cent and the ACED membership fee is sure to exceed that in 2026.
“It was a very hard decision (to make),” Hope said, adding that “the pressures at this time are forcing us to at least take a break” from ACED.
Hope says the membership formula is “a mess."
He says ACED is promoting a region where the three largest municipalities, Powassan, Magnetawan and Kearney are no longer part of the organization. He says soon people can add Burk’s Falls to that group.
HOPE says while some communities pay a full membership share, others don’t and “this has to be addressed somehow.”
The Burk’s Falls resolution was passed on Dec. 17 and the town council may revisit the issue in November one month before the departure from ACED takes effect.
Hope says when Burk’s Falls re-examines its decision, he’s hopeful ACED will have developed a membership “formula that gets everyone on board and it will be easier for us to fit into our budgets on a long-term basis.”
He adds this is a conversation that the board needs to have and has to include FedNor because the federal agency is a major financial contributor to ACED’s activities.
In October 2023 FedNor announced $400,000 for ACED and Hope said that funding is scheduled to run out around the end of 2026.
If there is no additional funding from FedNor, the local membership fees to ACED will skyrocket.
Hope feels that the sudden change within ACED’s administration where its director of economic development, Dave Gray, is leaving Feb. 3 to become Armour’s chief administration officer was another reason for Burk’s Falls to leave ACED.
See: Almaguin's director of economic development moving into top administrator role
But Hope said this wasn’t the deal breaker and the main reason for Burk’s Falls leaving ACED remained the financial infrastructure pressures it faces.
Strong Mayor Tim Bryson told Hope that an important function of ACED is its ability to help get government grants for the Highlands.
Bryson wanted to know how Burk’s Falls would succeed with future grant applications without the help of ACED.
“We’ll talk about this in the days ahead and look at different things we can do,” Hope said in response. He added Burk’s Falls would take a more do-it-yourself approach.
Hope wasn’t the only member who was critical of how the membership formula is constructed.
Councillor Brenda Scott, who represents the Village of South River on the ACED board, also weighed in on the funding formula. Scott said there is no argument that ACED “is a valuable commodity.”
But she disagreed that while some Almaguin communities pay into ACED and others don’t, everyone in the Highlands gets serviced.
Scott says she’s complained about this in the past but her complaints fall “on deaf ears” and that South River council is not going to want to keep subsidizing other municipalities that benefit from ACED’s services.
ACED’s Gray agreed at some point the membership share would have to be a conversation the board needs to have.
In addition to Burk’s Falls, South River and Strong, the other remaining communities that make up ACED are Armour, Perry, Sundridge, Joly and McMurrich/Monteith plus the Almaguin Highlands Chamber of Commerce.
Rocco Frangione is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter with Almaguin News. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.