Town of Bonnyville residents could be looking a slight increase on their water and sewer bills, but council has shown no inclination to raise municipal taxes.
“It hasn't been deliberated, but I have no appetite at this time to undertake a tax increase, we have a rainy day fund,” said Mayor Gene Sobolewski, adding that he doesn't think the town's revenues throughout the year will be quite as “doom and gloom” as they're forecasting.
“The biggest message that we have is that we've got contingency plans, we have the ability to react and get us through without the need for a tax increase.”
On Tuesday, Dec. 6, Town Council hosted their annual budget open house to give residents a look at their financial situation and plans for the future. Less than a handful of residents turned up to ask questions and provide their input.
Council looking at a deficit operating budget
Overall, the town is expecting a decrease in revenues of about $1.3 million from 2016, bringing their total income to just under $21.5 million. Subsequently, the draft budget also includes cut backs to expenses of about $588,000. Total expenses sit at $22.2 million, for an operating budget deficit of close to $690,000.
“Right now in the ‘rainy day fund' we have $1.3 million, plus we have $210,000 worth in operating reserves dedicated for RCMP, the C2, and landfill operating,” explained town CAO Mark Power. “If we allocated some of that reserve we could actually bring the deficit down from $689,983 to $479,233. Then we'd only be depleting the general reserve by about $479,000.”
The largest area that will see tax dollars dedicated to it is Public Works at $3.15 million. Of that, $2.3 million will go towards roads, streets, walks and lighting.
“It's easy to see where we spend an awful lot of our money, and that's providing services and fixing our streets,” said assistant CAO Bill Rogers.
Following public works, protective services will see a tax dollar allocation of $2 million, with $1.47 million set for police services. Approximately $67,000 is a new cost for the drug unit that's slated to start in July.
While the draft budget includes a one per cent increase to sewer and water rates, Power noted that they will actually be recommending council up that slightly to 1.5 per cent. It will only make an estimated difference of about 15 cents for the fixed rate, but it will help council avoid a large percentage jump in the future.
“Over the last five years we've averaged 1.29 per cent in inflation and costs, but we've only been increasing the bill one per cent,” said Power, adding if they keep it at one per cent, its likely they'll need a large increase in the future. “It's not a lot (at 1.5 per cent), but we really hate those five or six per cent jumps. It's really easy to eat 15 or 20 cents but it's a lot harder when it's a dollar or more.”
Residents can also expect to see changes to the provincially-set school and seniors requisitions. The town is forecasting to see a five per cent decrease on the school requisition based on a lower provincial equalized assessment, and a 52 per cent increase to the seniors requisition based on a request from Lakeland Lodge and Housing.
Draft shows balanced capital budget
On the capital side of the budget the town is looking at revenues of $14.65 million, with $8.5 million being borrowed for the new town hall and $2 million available from grants.
Capital expenses total $14.65 million for a balanced budget. From that, $8.5 million is dedicated to the town hall, $900,000 is for the regional water and servicing strategies, and $3.45 million is dedicated to infrastructure replacement including Gurneyville Road, 34 St. and 66 St.
“The MD is going to hopefully do the Gurneyville Road pavement. The portion from their new road on 66 St. coming into the new Tim Hortons will be paved and 34 St. we've budgeted $1 million. We won't do the whole upgrade that we had engineered... for $1 million we're all least get that paved to help the teachers and students being dropped off at the Franchophone school,” Power explained.
The draft 2017 capital also budgets $383,000 for replacing the pump and completing the must-do items from the engineering study at the swimming pool.
One question posed to council during the open house was if they would be interested in the formation of a committee to look into accessing grant money for the pool. While not wanting to discourage the idea, according to Power there's a slim chance the government would support the pool since it's funded by the town and not a community group.
It was noted that the pool will need to replaced in the future, beyond the 2026 end date of their 10-year capital plan. For the meantime, they have committed to the necessary repairs to keep it running.
“The idea with the must dos and the need to dos is to try and extend the life of the pool so that somehow, somewhere decisions can be made on what we need to do,” said Sobolewski. “The pool is 30 years old, so this is highly expected.”
The draft budget will be back in front of town council at their upcoming meeting on Dec. 13 for final discussion before adopting the interim capital and operating budget. Council will still have the chance to make changes come spring before voting on the final budget for 2017.
“You look at Bonnyville and our indicators over the last five years indicated that we were one of the strongest economies in the province of Alberta. We know that the upswing and general prosperity will bring us back again,” encouraged Sobolewski. “The sky isn't falling, but we have to be very judicious and prudent in terms of moving forward so that we don't get ourselves into trouble by extending ourselves too far.”
