Invest Windsor-Essex (IWE) may get a reprieve from Essex County Council following the deputy warden's notice of motion to reconsider and rescind a council decision that cut 2025 funding by 15 per cent.
Last November, county council voted 8-6 in favour of cutting IWE’s budget by $168,000.
Hilda MacDonald, warden of Essex County says a number of council members have since changed their minds after talking to Keith Andrews, IWE's temporary CEO.
"They had more information, so there's a feeling that we should look at changing that and going back to the request which was I think 15 per cent more than what council agreed to," she said. "We said we wanted to cut 15 per cent, majority approved that, and then there were those of us that didn't."
She says she heard from residents questioning why these cuts were made.
"We sometimes have trouble at the county table thinking regionally," MacDonald said. "Some municipalities feel that they don't get bang for their buck, and that was the reason for that kind of a cut, but again we have to look at it regionally and see how it affects everyone and benefits in the entire Windsor-Essex region."
MacDonald says IWE has global reach that they do not have at the municipal level.
"Even if we have our own economic development officers, they do retention and expansion, they can't reach out globally, we can't afford to do that," she said. "We can't afford to send people to Korea, or to wherever they're going in Europe. That's something that we need to pay commonly so we can afford it. Individually it's not financially prudent to do that."
The original amount of requested funding was $1,122,060.
The matter will be debated and voted on at the next meeting of County Council on Feb. 19.