Prince Edward County has approved the carryover of unspent 2025 funds into 2026 for some programs under the Community Safety and Well-being Plan.
During Monday’s council meeting, councillors discussed a report on the Community Safety and Well-being Plan, specifically regarding poverty reduction efforts and the Municipal Financial Relief Grant.
Part of that discussion regarded plans to carry over unspent funds allocated to those projects for 2025 into the 2026 budget. This would add the unspent money to any 2026 funding received. A total of $20,000 of unspent funds from the 2025 Community Grants budget was proposed to be put towards food security initiatives, while $56,000 of unspent funding for the Municipal Financial Relief Grant program was proposed to be carried over, as part of the program’s proposed $473,000 of funding in 2026.
The report contained statistics on poverty in the county. According to the 2021 census, 10.1% residents are living on low incomes, including 400 children. Prince Edward County was also noted as having the highest number of low-income seniors among census divisions, with 33% of seniors affected. The report also notes the prevalence of “working poverty” with 31% of low-income residents having jobs, and still struggling to afford necessities due to high costs of housing, low wages, or seasonal work. Homelessness was brought up as a hidden problem, with many residents “couch surfing” or living in precarious conditions.
Councillor Bill Roberts spoke in favour of the motion, saying that the county has led the way with important programs, but there’s still work to be done.
“We were on the way to narrowing income inequality in this country. Between roughly 1970 and 1995 it was actually narrowing,” said Councillor Roberts. “Right now we have wealth inequality in this country, actually in North America, where the top 10% have more or less 70% of the wealth and where the top 1% has roughly 30% of the wealth, which strikes me as a bit out of balance. So yes, all of this is important. It’s essential, but it doesn’t solve poverty.”
The funding carryovers were both approved, and will be added to the draft budget for final approval.
