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Mono, Orangeville extend fire protection deal by one year

September 24, 2026   ·   0 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS

Increases in material costs for Orangeville’s firefighting service mean Mono will have to pay more.

In June 2019, the Fire Protection Service Agreement was amended from per-call billing to a flat fee paid in four installments. That payment structure and agreement lasted until 2022, when a revised deal for four more years was passed.

That current deal is set to expire at the end of this year.

The existing agreement has enabled Orangeville to provide emergency response and related operational support, as well as administrative, fire prevention, inspection, public education, training, and management functions required to support an effective fire protection program.

According to a letter from Orangeville Fire Chief John Snider, extending the current agreement for one year is intended to preserve continuity of service until an updated cost-recovery model that more accurately reflects the town’s current and forecasted service delivery costs can be reviewed and accepted by councils of participating municipalities.

Orangeville Fire Services has sent a proposal to extend the current agreement by one year to Dec. 31, 2027.

The one-year extension proposes a 1.04 per cent increase to the current cost, for an increase of $11,845 over the 2026 price. The cost for fire services will be $1,148,928.

With inflation currently at 2.4 per cent for Ontario, this is a reasonable cost increase, Les Halucha, Mono’s treasurer, said in a report to council for its Sept. 22 meeting.

Snider said the benefits to Mono of the extension include uninterrupted fire protection, preservation of a proven service-delivery relationship between the municipalities, and some measure of certainty for the 2027 municipal operating budget.

“It allows time for participating municipalities to review longer-term needs, service levels, and cost-sharing arrangements,” he said. “[It] supports fair cost-recovery for Orangeville taxpayers while continuing to provide reliable service to agreement municipalities.”

Snider said in a letter to Mono council that one of the key factors in the agreement price increase is escalating operating costs and inflationary pressures on Orangeville’s fire service resources.

“Broad inflation has increased the cost of apparatus operation and maintenance, equipment, protective clothing, communications, training, insurance, utilities, and supplies,” Snider said. “These pressures affect both front-line emergency response and the supporting functions necessary to sustain it.”

Mike Dunmore, Mono’s CAO, said the extended agreement represents a reasonable increase.

Councillor Melinda Davie said Mono appears to be continuing with Orangeville Fire Services. She suggested an extension of that service agreement should be longer than a single year.

“Why are we not asking for something longer?” she said.

She said it seems the costs for other fire protection services from other neighbouring municipalities on which Mono depends have higher increases coming.

Halucha suggested the extension timeframe is tied to the Oct. 26 municipal elections. That way, two new councils in the respective municipalities can hash out a new agreement for the next term.

“If Orangeville brought this to our attention at the beginning of the year [2026], we probably could have hammered something out,” Halucha said. “But because of the election, it kind of messes things up.”

Orangeville is in the early stages of designing and building a new fire hall expected to cost millions of dollars. Mayor John Creelman asked when Mono can expect to see some of that cost included in service agreements, in proper proportion if at all.

“Are we currently paying for their new hall or is that the penny that will drop next year?” Creelman said.

Halucha said Mono isn’t chipping in on the new fire hall yet. But he said that is indeed in the offing.

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