Perth County council votes to discontinue PC Connect rural service after March 2025

As a result of the high cost per rider and the end of a funding agreement with the province, as well as to keep the 2025 proposed budget impact on county landowners down, Perth County council has voted to discontinue the PC Connect rural-route service as of March 31, 2025.

As part of 2025 budget deliberations at the end of the Dec. 5 Perth County council meeting, county economic development officer Justin Dias presented a report to council on the future of the PC Connect rural-route service after the county’s $2.47-million Community Transportation grant funding agreement with the province, which has been in place since PC Connect was launched in 2020, ends at the end of March.

In his report, Dias recommended extending the program by nine months to the end of 2025, which would cost taxpayers an additional $225,103 on top of what is already a double-digit proposed levy increase for next year at nearly 13.2 per cent.

“I initially had supported the extension for nine months, but considering the headwounds we have with our budget, there’s going to be no money coming to help fund this and the amount of people that are being pushed closer to the line (by the cost of living) and stuff like that, when it comes time to vote on this, I will be voting to terminate the program,” Coun. Hugh McDermid said.

“Over $60 per person, per ride is outrageous and we shouldn’t expect all the residents to subsidize that,” added Coun. Bob Wilhelm.

The funding required to continue the PC Connect rural-route transit service until the end of 2025 would represent a little more than a one per-cent increase to the proposed 2025 tax levy for the county.

While ridership is increasing, the county’s cost for each ride is decreasing and most regular users of the rural-route bus service indicated the importance of the service in connecting them to medical appointments, groceries and social and community engagements while reducing personal transportation costs and increasing their independence, the fact the province has not committed to any further funding for PC Connect after March 2025 was a concern for the majority of county council.

“We had hoped the (Ontario Transit Investment Fund) would support ongoing operations of PC Connect and support the service as it transitions to the gas tax (funding),” Dias said. “Unfortunately, as details were released (about the funding stream), it really is targeted towards new services or major changes to existing services to serve underserviced areas. So, we don’t see this as being that lifeline to support PC Connect in the short term.”

While there is no provincial funding currently available to support PC Connect in the way council and staff had hoped, Coun. Walter McKenzie and deputy warden Dean Trentwosky argued for extending the rural-route service until the end of the year to use that time to lobby the provincial government for stable transit funding.

Coun. Todd Kasenberg also expressed concerned with what he perceived as short-sightedness in discontinuing a transit service as the county continues to grow.

“We’ve essentially built a framework and a platform for us to deliver transportation services in our community; we do that every day in investing in roads and bridges and the matters of capital. And here we are; we’re definitely enured in the transportation and transit business,” he said. “For us and at this point in time, especially … for the rapidly growing community if North Perth which will be a city in 10-12 years, for us to remove transit and cause harms to people and to our local economy is a really bad idea.”

Kasenberg suggested the budget impact of extending the bus service doesn’t outweigh the benefits of the rural-transit routes, whether it’s supporting vulnerable people in rural communities by connecting them with family, friends and outside services, reducing Perth County’s carbon footprint by offering public-transit alternatives to the use of personal vehicles, or promoting economic development by connecting local businesses to the labour and other outside resources they need to thrive in the county’s rural areas.

Ultimately however, council voted to discontinue the PC Connect rural-route service after March 31, 2025. Deputy warden Trentowsky and councillors McKenzie, Kasenberg and Matt Duncan – all of whom represent either North Perth or West Perth – voted against the motion. The remainder of council, comprising representatives from Perth East and Perth South as well as Warden Doug Kellum, who serves as deputy mayor in North Perth, voted in favour.

Please note PC Connect Routes 1, 2 and 3 offering service between Stratford, St. Marys, London, Kitchener-Waterloo and North Perth are not impacted by this decision.

Draft 2025 Perth County budget remains steady with proposed 13.18 per-cent levy increase

Perth County’s draft 2025 budget was released to the public in early November and county council has met three times – on Nov. 7, 21 and Dec. 5 – for budget deliberations.

The draft budget carries an overall proposed levy of $25,123,337, up by nearly $3 million or 13.18 per cent above the 2024 levy. The draft budget includes an overall operating levy of just over $21 million – up by more than $2.65 million over last year – and a capital levy of just over $4 million, which increased slightly by $280,000 over the previous year’s capital levy.

The budget also includes the proposed transfer of $412,300 from reserves to keep the levy increase at 13.18 per cent.

Though county treasurer and director of corporate services Corey Bridges said it could be higher, early estimates show the county saw roughly 1.5 per cent growth, adding $333,250 to the tax base last year and effectively reducing the proposed levy increase to nearly 11.7 per cent.

The county’s operating budget includes the hiring of a number of new staff positions including a full-time prosecutor at a cost of nearly $122,000, part-time backfill paramedics at a cost of nearly $334,400, a full-time economic-development officer at a cost of nearly $77,800, an administrative assistant to the CAO at just over $52,000, a contract planner at just over $46,000 and a summer student to work in the CAO’s office at a cost of nearly $15,600.

Meanwhile, the proposed 2025 capital budget includes 39 projects at a total cost of roughly $11 million. If the budget is approved as is, just over $9 million of that cost would be covered through county reserves, while nearly $2 million would be funded through the Canada Community Building Fund, the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund and from agreements with municipal partners.

The more-than $4 million to be collected through next year’s proposed capital levy would be transferred to reserves for future capital projects.

Perth County council will next discuss the proposed 2025 budget at its Dec. 19 meeting, after which staff are hopeful the budget will be adopted and passed early in the new year.