Chatham-Kent mayor Randy Hope wants everybody to know just exactly where the municipal debt level sits.
With a debt of about $96-million, Hope says there’s a couple of different sources of debt.
“The majority of that is from water and wastewater, and that’s a rate-based system, so the actual property debt is 24 to 25 million”, Hope explains.
The water and wastewater debt is paid down through water bills, rather than property taxes.
Hope says $96 million is a lot, but the total debt was much higher a decade ago.
“We’ve been able to reduce our debt by over half, which is a significant accomplishment. What we’ve learned to do is to ‘pay-as-you-go’ and that’s what we’ve been trying to do”, says Hope.
In 2007 debt levels were at $186-million.
