The City of Kenora is sitting in pretty good financial shape, despite a downturn in markets in 2022.

A draft of the city’s audited financial statements was recently presented.

Cathy Nelson from MNP says overall, the city has assets of over $70 million.

“So we have net financial assets once we subtract those liabilities from the financial assets of almost $73 million,” Nelson told council as she explained the 2022 audited financial figures.”

“So that’s this indicator of the municipality’s financial position or health.”

Nelson points out that one municipality in northwestern Ontario had a net debt in 2022, because their liabilities exceeded their assets, so by comparison, the City of Kenora is doing quite well.

On the downside, Nelson adds the city did actually post a deficit in 2022 as the city had to borrow money from it’s own reserves due to heavy snow and flooding in 2022.

“The non-PSAB (Public Service Accounting Board) deficit was $428,000, and it was covered by an appropriation from Winter Control and contingency reserves.”

The other piece of bad news for the city is that it lost money in 2022 from the KMTS prosperity Trust Fund.

Nelson says that year was not a good one for the stock markets.

“There was a $1.7 million loss during 2022 and also $1.1 million is transferred every year from your Prosperity Fund to you General Fund, so that comprises the reduction of $2.8 million”.

Nelson says on the upside, the markets did rebound in 2023.