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 Tweed, and 2024 for 73 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. Published meeting minutes (eScribe)

   Municipality · retrieved 2026-09-30

   Meeting minutes, closed sessions and declarations of interest. We read all 207 sets of minutes published on the town's meeting portal (2020 to 2026), including committee meetings. We also read the 2 newest sets of council minutes from the agenda packages where they came up for adoption, before the portal posted them. Counts of closed sessions cover council and special council meetings.

3. Municipality of Tweed, Municipal Election page (2022 candidate financial statements)

   Municipality of Tweed · retrieved 2026-09-30

   What each council candidate raised and spent in the 2022 election. The statements are scanned forms; we typed the totals and checked each against its page.

4. Municipality of Tweed, council remuneration and expense statements

   Municipality of Tweed · retrieved 2026-09-30

   What each council member was paid, and spent on benefits and expenses, 2020 to 2025. One statement a year; the link is the latest, and the council page links each year.

5. Municipality of Tweed, budget documents

   Municipality of Tweed · retrieved 2026-10-01

   Yearly budgets, 2011 to 2026. Used to check the town’s plans against what it reported.

6. Municipality of Tweed, audited consolidated financial statements

   Municipality of Tweed (on its Laserfiche records portal) · retrieved 2026-09-30

   The audited yearly statements, 2009 to 2023. Used to check the Province’s figures; 2024 and 2025 were not posted when we looked.

7. 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 73 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.

Checked against the audited statements

For 2023 we compared the Province’s figures with the town’s audited consolidated financial statements (audited by Baker Tilly KDN LLP, a clean opinion signed May 22, 2024). Total revenue ($11,139,022), total expenses ($13,677,784), cash, investments, the temporary loan, long-term debt, the asset retirement obligation and net financial assets all match to the dollar. The statements.

Attendance and recorded votes

For each council and special council meeting of the current term, a member counts as present if the minutes list them under "Council Present". We checked a sample against each meeting's "Council Absent" line. Recorded votes are listed exactly as the minutes give them; the descriptions of what was voted on are in our own words.

Meeting minutes

Minutes were read in an ordinary web browser from the town's public meeting portal. We counted closed sessions (meetings citing section 239 of the Municipal Act) and recorded each declaration of interest from the "Disclosure of Pecuniary Interest" section. Summaries are in our words; each links to the original minutes.

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.