There are still a few details that need to be ironed out when it comes to the Town of Bonnyville's budget, and all options were on the table during their open house on Tuesday.
Around a dozen community members put council in the hot seat during the town's budget open house on Dec. 3.
Administration presented the second drafts of their operating and capital budgets to gain feedback from the public ahead of the interim budget being passed later this month.
Town resident Dan Vines believes the municipality has a lot of difficult discussions moving forward.
"There's got to be a lot more thinking on (the shortfalls), but it could be a lot worse."
"There's some tough decisions they've got to make, but it's the reality," agreed Morris Mickalyk, who also resides in town. "We're out of control financially as a province and as a country. There has to be some realigning of funding."
Operating budget
Total revenues for the operating budget for 2020 are sitting at $21.12-million, which is down $1.5-million from 2019. With expenses projected around $21.64-million, administration is predicting a $525,534 deficit as a result.
Maintaining the contribution made to the Bonnyville Friendship Centre at $2,500, reducing the amount given to the Bonnyville and District Chamber of Commerce by $9,000, transferring $381,105 from the general operating reserve, and re-allocating the C2 mill rate of $252,085 to the municipal mill rate were among the recommendations offered by administration to handle the shortfall.
Mayor Gene Sobolewski stressed council would be looking into any areas where they could pull back on spending in future discussions.
"Everything is on the table at this point. We're just painting a picture and showing where we're at with some of those tough decisions we may have to make in January," he noted.
The municipality moving ahead with an economic development officer in partnership with the MD of Bonnyville was a topic of discussion. President of the Bonnyville chamber Robyn Ducharme encouraged council to pursue the possibility if they can.
"Economic diversification is an investment that we have to make in our town's future, and it's something that, I think, is a risk that council would have to take. It's a lot different than those tangibles that you're looking for, and I don't think you're ever going to get those tangibles from the people putting forward the idea to start working on economic diversification," she said. "We're an oil and gas town, but as long as we keep riding that wave... it's going to go up and down constantly going forward. If we don't spread our wings and get some other industries in this town, we're just going to see these issues over and over again."
While the draft didn't include changes to municipal taxes, a one or two per cent increase was suggested as an option for balancing the operating budget.
If council decided to keep taxes in line with 2019, there would be roughly $7.86-million collected in 2020.
According to Renee Stoyles, director of finance for the town, a one per cent increase would bring in an additional $78,000 in revenue while a two per cent jump would see $156,700.
The bulk of the operating revenue is dedicated to public works at $2.8-million. Roads, streets, sidewalks, and lighting has a net cost of $2.32-million.
The second highest price tag for 2020 is protective services. Around $2.28-million is allocated, with roughly $1.47-million going toward RCMP. Contracted costs for 911 operations saw a jump of $39,175 to $116,961 in 2020.
"That increased by 50.36 per cent, and that's to accommodate Next Generation 911," Stoyles explained.
Capital budget
Total expenditures for the capital budget are expected to be at $10.92-million for 2020, while revenues are anticipated around $6.2-million.
In the first draft of the budget, which was presented to council at their Nov. 26 meeting, the MSI funding was expected to decrease by close to $283,000. However, after receiving a letter from the province, the town is now expecting their MSI to increase by $466,000 over 2019, for a total of $1.9-million.
Suggestions offered to balance the $4.66-million deficit included transferring money from future capital, funding a portion of the shortfall from the general reserves, and postponing projects such as the feasibility study for a fine arts facility and work being done on the parking lot located beside Notre Dame High School (NDHS).
Mickalyk asked whether or not the $1.5-million for the library expansion could be delayed in order to assist with eliminating the shortcoming.
"We may be able to squeeze by another year without it."
CAO Mark Power explained that was one of the options council opted for in 2019 in order to put that money toward the regional waterline, and is still a possibility for next year's budget.
"There isn't any items on that are on the list... that can't be done," he noted. "We already deferred the library expansion from this year to next, and that was in order to fund the waterline."
One of the projects that can't be deferred is the regional waterline, which the municipality was planning to put the ID 349 money toward in 2020. After the province announced they were bringing the ID 349 agreement back to the table leaving the town unsure if any funds will be coming their way.
"The money we committed for the waterline is committed money. The deficit is a real 2019 deficit if we don't get (the ID 349) money, and we need to borrow or defer a bunch of projects so we can afford to do it out of next year's capital budget," he detailed. "The other way we can defer projects is we can borrow for any length of time, so then it's just paying it off each year, but there's interest associated with that so we generally don't like to do that."
The next draft of the budget will be in front of council during their Dec. 10 meeting for further discussions. An interim budget is required to be passed before Dec. 31.
