The province's efforts to amalgamate conservation authorities will bring a big line item to Huron County's budget moving forward.
Huron County council received an update from Treasurer Michael Blumhagen this week about the impact of Ontario overhauling its conservation authority system.
He said instead of four conservation authorities, the county now will answer to just the Western Lake Erie Regional Conservation Authority and the Lake Huron Regional Conservation Authority.
"We'll essentially have two conservation authorities that we will be dealing with moving forward," said Blumhagen. "What was interesting to me and caught me by surprise was who will be paying for these new levies and that is going to be the upper-tier. So Huron County is now going to be paying for the conservation authorities, where previously it was our partner municipalities footing those bills."
Lower tier municipalities spent a combined $2.2 million levy on conservation authorities in 2026, which would be an annual increase at the county level of 3.8 per cent.
Blumhagen said it was still unclear if those changes would go into effect for 2027.
Huron East Mayor Bernie MacLellan said while lower tiers will no longer participate, the financial impact should be the same, as long the new system doesn't lead to greater costs.
"At the end of the day, it was the larger municipalities that would paying the bigger portion of the county budget overall," he said. "Instead of taking it from the right pocket, you're taking it from the left. Financially, it shouldn't make a difference, as long as the dollar values we have to raise stay consistent. That's more my concern, now that we don't have local representation, if those levies start to jump up."
Bluewater Mayor Paul Klopp noted that the reason for consolidation was supposedly to lower costs, so that is something council members will need to stay on top of.
Newly elected upper-tier municipal councils will select the board members for the new regional authorities following the fall municipal elections.
