42 | BusinessWorld |
May 2014
relationship with budget-makers and the
absence of significant long-term debt – to
get the counties onto a level maintenance
playing field going forward.
“We used to have a lot more of a patchwork
approach and we were never really able to
get ahead of the workload,” he said. “But
things kind of turned around in 2007 and
2008, we had a lot of short-term that we
cleared away, which left about $1.5 million
each year to deal with funding instead of
paying off the credit card.”
Th e c o un t i e s ha v e b e en j o i n e d
administratively since 1820 and were home
to 85,381 people at the time of the 2011
census, a moderate rise of just more than
5,000 over five years, but one that’s been
sparked by the arrival of commuters who
choose tom live rurally and work in nearby
Ottawa – whose downtown neighborhood
begins about 30 kilometers from the
counties’ westernmost point.