Tay council approved more financial relief measures for its residents by extending the penalties and interest charge waivers until the end of July.
Previously, council had approved the waiver to be extended until May 1, but due to the pandemic-imposed lockdown continuing with uncertainty as to an end date, staff brought forward the request for this extension at Wednesday night's virtual meeting.
Councillors were curious as to what else staff could be offering residents in terms of financial relief.
Coun. Jeff Bumstead asked if there was a way to come up with more targeted programs without acceessing personal financial information.
"That's an area where I don't like to go," said Joanne Sanders, the township's director of finance and treasurer. "It's a very difficult area and it's really hard to be fair to people. There are a lot of government programs out there for people in need. So it's really hard to come up with a fair program. I know that currently there isn't really anything out there. If council wants us to, we can do more research."
Bumstead asked if staff had a number around how many residents had taken advantage of the waivers.
"We don't have really concrete information on that," Sanders said. "But I did have our deputy treasurer run what's outstanding and it doesn't feel it's a whole lot different than last year. With taxes, a lot of people had already taken care of that and the March 20 water bill. We don't see an impact until our June 20 water billing."
Deputy Mayor Gerard LaChapelle said he felt the municipality had done everything it could so far to help give people financial relief.
"I think what we've done is fair," he said. "It's kind of hard for staff to do an evaluation so I don't think there's any need to put that pressure on them."
The township also looked at the report presented by CAO Lindsay Barron around supplemental unemployment benefits for staff, who may be laid off due to COVID-19 temporarily impacting the availability of work.
The Supplemental Unemployment Benefit Plan allows the township to top-up Employment Insurance benefits for employees who are unable to work due to temporary work shortages.
"Regardless of whether an employee works zero or some random number of hours in a week, under this program, the employee will receive the same gross weekly earnings," the report stated.
"As such, it is recommended that all staff subject to layoff be put on a rotation (on a best-efforts basis) in order to achieve some equity in hours worked and ensure proper continuity of operations."
Council members had some questions around staff eligibility for the plan, but Barron provided clarifications.
"In the policy, we have to state the cases of employees that are eligible for the plan," she said. "It is for all permament full-time, permanent part-time and long-term contract staff. We have to offer this plan to all classes that are identified. We can't pick or choose who is eligible. Nor are staff volunteering to be part of the plan."
