Kawartha Lakes financial situation ‘stable’ during pandemic

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DAN CEARNS, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, for The Standard

KAWARTHA LAKES: City of Kawartha Lakes officials provided reporters with an update on the city’s COVID-19 related financial picture on Wednesday, May 13th. “We’re just fine tuning, or finalizing, the numbers this week. I’m happy to say that overall, there’s stability in our budgets. Obviously there are still some wild cards if we don’t proceed, and I’m suspecting we won’t proceed with certain revenue generating programs, particularly summer based events. That’s the one that we still have to make some decisions on in the immediate term. But overall, based on our general operating budget, we are stable,” City of Kawartha Lakes CAO, Ron Taylor explained. “We are now looking line by line at our capital budget to make sure that we can properly initiate or implement those projects right across the board. It appears that we’ll be able to manage and afford a full capital program this year.” Council is expected to see a more detailed financial report at a May 26th meeting. Mayor Andy Letham said the tourism industry in Kawartha Lakes will be challenged this year. “I think it’s a fair bet that we’re going to see some losses in tourism,” the mayor said. “There’s really no other reason to come up here other than to check on your property, from a tourism perspective. Those tourism businesses that rely on those tourists are not even allowed to open at this point.”

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