a General Manager or Chief Administrative Officer who reports to the Board. Funding Conservation authorities' funding comes from a variety of sources. Conservation authorities have the power to generate revenue through fees and other self-generated revenue, and also the power to levy their member municipalities. As registered charities, they are eligible for certain government grants. Under Section 39 of the Conservation Authorities Act, the Province may also provide grants to conservation authorities. Historically, conservation authorities' funding was split evenly between the Province and member municipalities. In the mid-1990s, under the Red Tape Reduction Act of the Progressive Conservative government, conservation authorities' provincial funding was drastically reduced from more than million annually divided among all the authorities to $8 million, and the Province reduced the scope of its support to natural hazard management programs and programs for protecting provincially significant conservation land, although the $8 million in funding was exclusively for natural hazard management. Other programs were considered to be only in the local interest and the Province stated that those programs could be funded by municipalities if the municipalities wished them to continue. At the same time, the government provided conservation authorities with new powers to charge fees and generate revenue. As a result, most conservation authorities became more entrepreneurial to generate the revenue needed to continue their local programming. Funding was further cut by 5% to $7.6 million in 2000. In 2012, under the Liberal government, funding was cut again by 2% to $7.448 million, and in 2019, under the Progressive Conservative government, it was cut again by 48% to $3.58 million. The Province also provides funding to conservation authorities for the implementation of the Clean Water Act, brought in as a result of the inquiry into the E. coli outbreak in Walkerton in 2000 which resulted in six deaths, which is meant to identify threats to and protect drinking water sources. Annual budgets are determined by the board of directors. The portion to be funded by municipal levy (payment by member municipalities) is divided among the participating municipalities according to a formula set out in Ontario Regulation 670/00 which is based on the total value of all lands within each municipality, multiplied by modifiers in the regulation and by the proportion of the municipality which falls within the authority's jurisdiction, as a proportion of the total modified value within the authority's jurisdiction. For example, if 30% of a