Central Frontenac taxpayers are paying an $11.2 million municipal levy this year. Four months after council adopted the budget, they still cannot see what it pays for. The full line-by-line budget has never been published. What eventually appeared on the Township’s website was a summary, and it appeared only after this newsroom started asking questions.
The budget was built behind closed doors. Mayor Frances Smith invoked provincial strong mayor powers to develop the spending plan privately with staff, then presented council with a near-finished product. Three of nine councillors voted against the process before a single number was drafted. Their objections are in the minutes. Whether those objections were addressed in the final document cannot be determined from the summary that was posted.
NFNM contacted the Township on March 26, 2026, with questions about the budget process, the non-publication of the adopted budget, and the scope of Mayoral Directions and Decisions issued in 2025. The deadline for response was April 1. The Township did not respond to any question about the budget.
What follows is assembled from the Township’s own documents, including the Mayoral Directives and Decisions on file, council meeting records, the published budget page, and PDF metadata from the documents that appeared after NFNM’s inquiry. All sources are cited at the end of this article.
The Directives
Smith has served as Mayor since 2014 and was acclaimed in both 2018 and 2022. She served as Warden of Frontenac County four times, in 1996, 2016, 2020, and 2024, and was elected President of the Frontenac Municipal Services Corporation in January 2024. She and CAO/Clerk Cathy MacMunn have worked together in Central Frontenac municipal government for approximately twenty-five years; they have been described as “the only remaining municipal figures in Frontenac County with pre-1998 amalgamation experience,” according to the Frontenac News (“Central Frontenac Mayor Frances Smith Announces She Won’t Be Running Again,” December 5, 2025). Smith announced her retirement from politics in November 2025.
On October 7, 2025, Smith signed Mayoral Direction MDI-2025-01, invoking Part VI.1 of the Municipal Act, the strong mayor provisions enacted by Ontario’s Bill 3. The province had expanded these powers to Central Frontenac and all other Ontario municipalities with six or more council members effective May 1, 2025, by amending O. Reg. 530/22. The directive instructed the CAO/Clerk and the Treasurer to prepare a preliminary draft of the 2026 operating and capital budget “with an overall levy increase not exceeding 5%,” to provide periodic updates to the Mayor, and to make the draft available to all members of council, staff, and the public by November 20, 2025. It was the first formal use of strong mayor budget authority in Central Frontenac’s history.
On November 3, 2025, Smith issued a second directive, MDI-2025-02, revising the levy cap upward to 5.5 percent. The structure was otherwise identical.
The traditional budget process in Central Frontenac had department heads presenting spending plans to the full council over multiple sessions, with council shaping the document through open deliberation. The strong mayor framework replaced that with a process in which the Mayor worked privately with staff, then presented the result to council.
Smith described this directly. At the October 28, 2025 council meeting, as reported by the Frontenac News (“Strong Mayor Powers Have Changed Municipal Budgeting, At Least In Central Frontenac,” November 20, 2025), she told council: “I’ve got to tell you that I have spent about 20 hours this week, going through numbers. We started really high, and we’re down to a little over 5%.” On the directive itself, she stated: “I asked staff to bring me a budget with a 5% overall increase… and I will have a sharp pencil, so maybe we can save some Council time when we all look at it in December.”
The Dissent
When council voted on the budget schedule at its October 28, 2025 meeting, three councillors voted against the motion. The dissent was immediate and on the record.
Councillor Philip Smith, representing Ward 4, Hinchinbrooke, did not think the arrangement of council receiving the budget only after the Mayor had vetted it with staff was acceptable, according to the Frontenac News account of the meeting. He was joined by Councillor Nicki Gowdy, also of Ward 4, a six-year council member who also sits on Frontenac County Council, and by Councillor Cindy Kelsey of Ward 1, Kennebec, a three-term councillor who was subsequently appointed Deputy Mayor on December 9, 2025.
One-third of the table registered concern before the budget was drafted. Their objections are on the record. Whether those concerns shaped the final document is impossible to determine, because the full budget has not been published.
The Adoption and the Levy
The budget was presented at a special council meeting on December 4, 2025. Council proposed amendments. Smith chose not to exercise her veto power, recording that decision in Mayoral Decision MDE-2025-013, signed and received December 9, 2025. The document states that the ten-day veto period under O. Reg. 530/22 was shortened to five days by council resolution, that the veto period concluded December 9, and that “no veto will be issued.” The 2026 budget was deemed adopted as of December 9, 2025.
The 2025 municipal levy was $10,758,350, a 5.7 percent increase over 2024. The 2026 municipal levy is $11,285,509, according to Report No. 010-2026 from the January 27, 2026 Regular Council Meeting, adopted under Motion No. 2026-24.
The Missing Budget
NFNM’s automated scraper monitored the Township’s HighBond document portal from March 25 through April 6, 2026. During that period, no budget documents appeared. The Central Frontenac website’s Budget and Financial Statements page listed budget documents for every year from 2016 through 2025. The 2026 budget was absent.
Between April 6 and April 7, 2026, two documents appeared on the Township’s website: a “2026 Operating & Capital Budget Report - Website Summary” and a “2026 Budget Highlights.” PDF metadata from the Budget Summary shows the document was created on April 1, 2026 (CreationDate: Wed Apr 1 15:12:27 2026 EDT), by author “mmcgovern,” which corresponds to Treasurer Michael McGovern. NFNM sent its questions to the Township on March 26, 2026, with an April 1 response deadline. The Budget Summary was created on the exact date that deadline expired.
The Budget Highlights PDF carries a creation date of January 7, 2026, according to its metadata. That document existed for three months before it appeared on the Township’s website.
What the Township posted is titled “Website Summary.” It is not the full budget. The line-by-line budget as submitted by the Mayor on November 20, 2025, the document council voted on December 4 and that was deemed adopted December 9, remains unavailable to the public.
The Scope of the Powers
Strong mayor provisions under Part VI.1 of the Municipal Act give the head of council two instruments: Mayoral Directions (MDI), which instruct staff, and Mayoral Decisions (MDE), which record the Mayor’s exercise of veto or confirmation powers. The highest-numbered Mayoral Decision on file is MDE-2025-013, dated December 9, 2025, implying at least thirteen were issued in 2025. NFNM has copies of MDE-2025-006 through MDE-2025-009, all relating to by-law approvals, and MDE-2025-013. The contents of MDE-2025-001 through 005 and MDE-2025-010 through 012 are unknown.
In approximately seven months, Smith issued at least thirteen Mayoral Decisions and two Mayoral Directions. A CBC News investigation published December 9, 2025 (“Less than half of ‘strong mayors’ were using powers before Ontario expanded system: reports,” by Shawn Jeffords) found that among the original 46 municipalities designated for strong mayor powers, fewer than half had used them at all, and only three mayors had used veto or by-law powers.
Central Frontenac does not maintain a public registry of Mayoral Directions or Decisions. Other strong-mayor municipalities, including Oakville, Barrie, Wasaga Beach, Kincardine, and Greenstone, publish searchable registries of all such instruments online. In Central Frontenac, the documents appear only when embedded in council agenda packages on the Township’s HighBond portal. There is no index, no dedicated page, and no way for a member of the public to determine how many times the Mayor has used these powers or what she directed.
What Remains Open
The council amendments that Smith chose not to veto have not been itemized in the December 4 meeting minutes on file. The specific objections raised by the three dissenting councillors beyond the recorded vote have not been documented in the public record. The contents of up to eight Mayoral Decisions remain unknown. Whether the Township will publish the full line-by-line budget, rather than the website summary now posted, is an open question. Whether the Township will establish a public registry of Mayoral Directions and Decisions is also unanswered.
NFNM’s inquiry included questions about the budget construction process, the non-publication of the adopted budget, the scope of Mayoral Directions and Decisions issued in 2025, and the absence of a public registry. The Township responded to questions about the Mayor’s personal property application, addressed in a separate article. It did not respond to any of the budget questions.
North Frontenac News Media contacted the Township of Central Frontenac on March 26, 2026, with questions about the 2026 budget process, the non-publication of the adopted budget, the scope of Mayoral Directions and Decisions, and the absence of a public registry. The Township did not respond by the April 1 deadline. It responded only to questions about minor variance application APPN-2025-0054, addressed in a separate article.
Sources: Mayoral Directives MDI-2025-01 and MDI-2025-02 and Mayoral Decision MDE-2025-013, from public council records, on file with NFNM. Budget baseline from By-law 2025-15. 2026 levy from Report No. 010-2026, January 27, 2026, Motion No. 2026-24. Frontenac News: “Strong Mayor Powers Have Changed Municipal Budgeting, At Least In Central Frontenac,” November 20, 2025; “Central Frontenac Mayor Frances Smith Announces She Won’t Be Running Again,” December 5, 2025. CBC News: “Less than half of ‘strong mayors’ were using powers before Ontario expanded system: reports,” Shawn Jeffords, December 9, 2025. NFNM scraper monitored the HighBond portal March 25 through April 6, 2026. Budget Summary PDF metadata: created April 1, 2026, author mmcgovern. Budget Highlights PDF metadata: created January 7, 2026.
