Heather Wright/The Independent

St. Clair Township Mayor Jeff Agar is defending using the Strong Mayor powers to form a budget after a councillor said he “abused” the special powers given by the province.

Municipalites with councils of more than six people were given the Strong Mayor powers – meant to advance provincial priorities such as housing – in 2025. It is the first year mayors will use the legislation at budget time.

Under the rules, mayors have control of the budget process and can present a document to council. While the Strong Mayor rules lay out timelines, it doesn’t say how mayors create budgets.

In most Lambton municipalities, mayors have either directed administration with a maximum tax increase goal to bring to council or set up a finance committee to review the document with the mayor.

In St. Clair Township in the past, Clerk Jeff Baranek says the top administrators would work with department heads to create a budget, paring it down before presenting it to council.

This year, Baranek said in an email to The Independent, the department heads submitted their budgets, the treasurer “collated them into a draft that he then provided to the mayor.” Baranek says Agar consulted with the treasurer, but had the final say.

During the January budget deliberations, Agar gave brief remarks about the $81 million budget, stressing it was a fiscally sound plan.

Staff members didn’t have a chance to speak about their projects with the mayor directly while he created the budget nor did they speak during the meeting about the priorities in their department.

After talking with Community Services staff, Councillor Holly Foster presented a number of motions to defer projects in the division to create funding for replacing the pipes at the Moore Sports Plex pool.

The township was planning to refurbish the pool area when the problem in the change room was found.

Foster’s motions all failed with councillors deciding in February to move ahead with the original work and when it was done, figure out how much funding was left over which could be used for the change room project.

But Foster was concerned by the process telling The Independent, “The mayor created the budget on his own…I think it is an abuse of Strong Mayor powers. It’s wrong in my opinion.”

Agar took to social media on the weekend to defend the plan saying he works to fully understand the needs of the whole municipality.

“I am constantly in contact with staff, residents and our users groups. Safety and improvements are paramount in making our decisions.

“Some of us agree and some of us do not, all part of being on council,” he wrote

Throughout the budget process administration and staff consulted with me through several meetings and we worked as a team to develop this budget together.

“How we prepared the budget this year changed very little. I did not sit with a pen and paper and pull or omit figures out of thin air as I have heard.”