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Not the full picture. Built from public records, which leave things out.Read by hand, Oct 2026DetailsThis is built from public records, which leave a lot out, and some of it may be wrong or out of date. Check the sources, and tell us if you spot a mistake. What this site can't tell you
Read by hand. We read Malahide's own documents for this site in October 2026; the Sources page lists which ones. The comparisons with other places still come from the Province's yearly reports.

Sources and method

Where this comes from

Everything on these pages comes from public documents. Here they are, with how we used them, so anyone can check our work.

Documents

  1. Ontario Financial Information Return (FIR)

    Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing · retrieved 2026-10-01

    The numbers behind the money and compare pages: 2019 to 2024 for Malahide, and 2024 for 94 similar towns. Figures are what the municipality reported to the Province for each year, prepared on the same basis as its audited financial statements.

  2. Corporation of the Township of Malahide, Consolidated Financial Statements, December 31, 2025 (Graham Scott Enns LLP, August 20, 2026)

    Township of Malahide (auditor: Graham Scott Enns LLP) · retrieved 2026-10-14

    Audited statements for 2025. Clean opinion dated August 20, 2026. 32 PDF pages. Printed page numbers are the PDF page minus two.

  3. 2026 Municipal Budget Book, Township of Malahide

    Township of Malahide · retrieved 2026-10-14

    The 2026 budget book, 217 PDF pages. It refers to itself as a draft. Cited by PDF page, because the printed page numbers in the book do not always match the PDF.

  4. Statistics Canada, Consumer Price Index, annual average (table 18-10-0005-01)

    Statistics Canada · retrieved 2026-10-01

    How much prices went up each year, so cost growth can be compared with inflation.

How the numbers are worked out

Day-to-day spending
Total expenses as reported, minus amortization ("wear and tear"), which is an accounting cost rather than cash spent that year. Costs are shown in the service where they were recorded, before the town spreads its office overhead across services, so the cost of running the office stays visible.
Per home
An amount divided by the number of households the town reported to the Province for that year.
Similar towns
Ontario lower-tier municipalities with 60% to 160% of this population that had filed their 2024 return, in 2024. This gives 94 towns. "Typical" means the median: half of similar towns are above it and half below. The size limits are a judgement call; moving them a little adds or drops a few towns, so treat small differences in rank as noise. Per-home figures use the household counts each town reports to the Province. Towns do not all count the same way: some include seasonal homes, so per-home comparisons are a guide, not exact.
Faster than prices
Growth is compared with Canada's Consumer Price Index over the same years.
When a question is raised automatically
When a cost grew at least 25 percentage points faster than prices and faster than 80% of similar towns; when a measure of money health is worse than 80% of similar towns; or when a one-year tax increase is higher than 80% of similar towns and well above inflation. "Needs an answer" means worse than 90% of similar towns. When there are fewer than 20 similar towns, automatic questions go no higher than "Worth asking", because one rank moves a lot in a small group.

What this cannot see

These records show totals by category, not individual payments. They cannot show whether a particular contract was fair, whether a purchase was split to avoid tendering, or who was paid. That needs the town's list of payments (its cheque register or accounts payable list), which residents can ask for under Ontario's freedom-of-information law (MFIPPA). That is the next thing we plan to add.