Residents of the City of Cold Lake could see an increase in their taxes come the new year.
According to the city's interim budgets, families will be seeing a jump of over three per cent in their taxes, as well as a rise in the cost of water, sewer, and waste.
It was during their regular council meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 11 that Cold Lake passed their 2019 interim capital and operational budgets.
City makes tough calls during operational budget talks
“After our budget deliberations, council had some hard decisions to make due to some loss and lack of funding, therefore, our (operational) budget came in at (over) $52-million,” explained Linda Mortenson, general manager of corporate services for Cold Lake.
About $16-million of the budget is being funded through ID 349, while the remainder is covered by a 3.07 per cent increase to taxes, for a total of $21-million, as well as grants and user fees.
Homeowners will see a bump of four per cent in their utility costs, and eight per cent in recycling fees.
“That brings these services for operating to cost recovery,” Mortenson noted, adding the average family will see a difference of about $7 per month on their utility bill.
The city's goal was the maintain their level of service, while keeping costs low.
Mayor Craig Copeland described it as a "no-frills and pretty lean budget."
Among the decision to transfer over $9.2-million to capital, Cold Lake also included $6.5-million for public works, $210,000 for the airport, $914,000 for public transportation, $2.9-million for police services, $1.4-million in fire services, and $987,000 for bylaw enforcement and animal control, among others.
City transit will continue to be offered free of charge. It comes in at a cost of around $914,000, while $30,000 has been dedicated for the special events subsidy.
Further enhancements to Kinosoo Beach, to a tune of $100,000, weren't included in the budget at this point.
Copeland said the landscaping to the playground and forest areas, and tree removal at the beach, as well as the start up of the Kinosoo Club, were deferred pending grant funding.
Council also cut back on their goodwill allowance, dropping it from the usual $70,000 to $40,000.
Their billboard campaign, the 2018 Alberta 55-plus Winter Games, capital grant policy, seasonal lights, Hearts for Healthcare, Kinosoo Performing Arts anniversary celebration, debenture payment deferral, payment in liu of taxes, and the North Arena ice plant rental were restricted from the 2018 surplus for a total of $765,500.
Over $1.2-million was allotted to providing services through Cold Lake and District FCSS, which CAO Kevin Nagoya described as a "top up" offered by council every year.
He explained, “You provide (funding) in order to continue the operations where they’re at."
Copeland noted the city decreased the amount they spend on concerts for 2019. They dropped this budget item by 50 per cent, and have included $50,000 for next year's shows.
The library had previously requested the city to consider increasing their funding for 2019, and as a result, council included $518,000 in their budget. The museum had made a similar ask, and council agreed to fund their service to a tune of about $154,000.
Copeland stressed that just because the interim budget includes an increase in taxes of over three per cent, doesn't mean that's how it will all work out in the end.
“Sometimes, when administration regroups and comes back in May with the final assessments, it’s a possibility that that number could go lower. In most cases, it goes down by half a per cent,” he said.
Mortenson added, the number the city ends up with will truly depend on revenue streams. They're still waiting to hear back in terms of final numbers for the Inter-municipal Collaboration Framework agreements and ID 349.
This was one of the reasons why Coun. Bob Buckle was okay with the budget as it stands.
“I feel that we’ve taken a prudent approach to this year’s budget. If things don’t improve into next year, then obviously we’re going to have to gouge a lot deeper into servicing. I would definitely speak against shifting too much capital back over to operations," he expressed. “We’ve got a good shot at bringing this down to less than one or zero per cent, if a few other things come together before the actual tax rate is set."
He described the budget as a "measured" approach, while a fellow councillor disagreed.
“I believe right now, a three per cent tax increase is more than what we should be bearing on our citizens,” emphasized Coun. Chris Vining.
He felt there were other areas the city could cut back in order to prevent a jump in municipal taxes.
“I understand we’re trying to hold the line on some of our services, but we have a lot of programs in the city that we’ve done enhancements to that either we continue to fund or increase our funding amounts from taxes on those things."
Vining used upgrades to the airport and the future mountain bike park as prime examples.
“Throughout the budget process, we weren’t really keen on shaving too much down in terms of cutting services. We know we have the Inter-Collaboration Framework coming up that we’re trying to work on, and I think that’s fine. If that was the case, I think there’s money from capital for non-urgent projects that we could have brought over (to operational) from capital in order to minimize it down to less than one or even zero per cent,” he stated. “There’s money there that could have been brought over to save on our operating budget and to save taxes. I really consider the $400,00 that we put forward for the mountain bike park. I'm fully supportive of that and I want to see that get going, (but) I don’t know if this is the year to be doing that, when we’re asking our ratepayers to take on more."
In the end, the interim operational budget was passed with the increase. The only councillor not voting in favour was Vining.
City's capital budget passed
Once council gave their operational budget the green light, they turned to their capital for 2019.
In total, there is just over $22-million in expenditures included in the interim budget.
“We have a wide-variety of capital budget items, with environment being just over $5-million, road improvements over $3-million, and fleet and equipment at almost $2-million,” detailed Mortenson, adding they have included $5.4-million for facility infrastructure, planning and development is getting $675,000, and $4-million has been dedicated to recreation.
“That funding source comes from about $9-million from the CLAWR, which is $8-million plus the $1-million extra, and $8-million straight from taxation, and a restricted surplus of $3-million, and grants of $11.5-million,” she continued.
The city is expecting to spend about $10-million on Lakeshore Drive infrastructure improvements to the wastewater system, $1.1-million on a new ice plant system for the North Arena, $300,000 on expanding the Imperial Oil Place Jr. A dressing room, $22-million on phase one of the public works operations centre, $1.7-million on marina dredging, and $1.9-million on the expansion to the RCMP detachment.
Council has also included the replacement of the animal shelter to a tune of $2-million, $1-million on the Regional Airport Initiative, $700,000 in phase one of the airport taxiway enhancements and $350,000 for phase two, an off-leash dog park at $100,000, and the mountain bike skills park with $600,000.
The interim budget passed with a vote of 5-1, with Vining again the only councillor not in favour. Coun. Duane Hite wasn't present at the meeting.
