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 2022 for Markstay-Warren, and 2022 for 27 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. Municipality of Markstay-Warren, budget documents

   Municipality of Markstay-Warren · retrieved 2026-10-01

   The town’s published budgets. Used to check its plans against what it reported.

3. 2026 Budget (department schedules A to capital)

   Municipality of Markstay-Warren · retrieved 2026-10-07

   17 PDF pages of account-level schedules. The text layer prints labels and amounts in separate blocks, so we used none of its figures.

4. 2026 Budget Presentation, June 1, 2026

   Municipality of Markstay-Warren · retrieved 2026-10-07

   24 slides. We used the text and the rows whose label and amounts print on one line.

5. 2026 Budget Highlights (news post, June 2, 2026)

   Municipality of Markstay-Warren · retrieved 2026-10-07

   The Municipality's plain-language summary of the 2026 budget and the 2025 year-end result.

6. Special Council Meeting notice (news post, May 12, 2026)

   Municipality of Markstay-Warren · retrieved 2026-10-07

   Notice of the May 14, 2026 meeting where KPMG presented the draft financial statements.

7. Request for Proposal, External Audit Services, TMW-2026-07

   Municipality of Markstay-Warren · retrieved 2026-10-07

   The call for bids for the Municipality's external auditor, with its dates.

8. Asset Management Plan 2024 (September 2025)

   Municipality of Markstay-Warren · retrieved 2026-10-07

   The plan required by Ontario Regulation 588/17, covering all asset categories. Used for replacement cost, the yearly capital requirement and the funding gap.

9. Asset Management (web page)

   Municipality of Markstay-Warren · retrieved 2026-10-07

   The Municipality's asset management page, with a replacement value for core assets.

10. Integrity Commissioner Annual Report, 2025 (March 17, 2026)

    Integrity Commissioner (outside law firm) · retrieved 2026-10-07

    A six-page letter to Council on requests for advice, complaints and costs in 2025.

11. 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 single-tier municipalities with 60% to 160% of this population that had filed their 2022 return, in 2022. This gives 27 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.