Not receiving the ID 349 money could have a significant impact on the Town of Bonnyville.
“Due to the announcement of the possible termination of funding from the ID 349, this has resulted in our 2019 capital budget being underfunded,” explained director of finance Renee Stoyles during council’s regular meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 8.
According to Mayor Gene Sobolewski, council was shocked when the Alberta’s Minister of Municipal Affairs Kaycee Madu informed the municipalities involved that an agreement would have to be made between the five communities before any money is released.
“We’ve had time to review our budgets, our projects, and where our funding is at. We found that we don’t have a lot of pennies in the bank to be able to cover the expenses we’re about to incur,” Sobolewski detailed. “That’s why the ID 349 funding was so important to the town, because it covered off the ability for us to be able to pay, particularly with the regional waterline. We had undertaken that under the assumption that we would be able to…It was going to be an ongoing funding amount within a certain limit and then at least it was predictable and added some stability to it.”
Council passed a motion to send a letter to Madu outlining the ramifications the town will face if the payments aren’t received.
“(The letter) will talk about the decisions that council has to make, which are unintended consequences of making the decision to cancel the funding when we’ve already committed in our budget, eight months ago, that we were going to do these projects, and at the last-minute the funding gets pulled,” detailed CAO Mark Power.
Although deferring projects such as the fine arts society feasibility study, resurfacing the tennis courts, and work on a recycling compound would help with the $4.76-million shortfall in the 2019 capital budget, the town would still be facing a deficit of $2.37-million.
“To fund this, we could use the ID 349 funds from 2018, which were being deferred revenue for the waterline and to aid with the waterline we could borrow a total of $3-million, which we have a borrowing bylaw (in place for),” explained Stoyles, adding the remaining $899,910 balance could be covered by the town.
Coun. Brian McEvoy stressed postponing the projects wouldn’t mean they aren’t happening.
“It’s not the intent right now to kill everything that’s on the list. The intent here is to identify what we would have to address so that we could make the Minister of Municipal Affairs aware of the unintentional impacts his meeting with us had and holding back of the 2019 funds.”
He continued, “I think we should use this list, which is a good cross-section of all capital projects within our budget this year, and identify within the letter that these are the projects that we’re going to have to cancel, leaving us still with a $2-million shortfall on capital, just so the minister understands what type of projects are going to disappear.”
As some of the items, including the 50 Ave. and Jessie Lake trails, are currently in the works, portions of the projects would be moving ahead if they come in under the anticipated costs.
“We’ll have a better handle on how much those are once the tenders close,” noted Power. “But, under current policy, administration would award those if they come in under budget or they’ll be on the next agenda for your approval.”
Even though there’s still a number of unknowns regarding the situation, Sobolewski was confident the municipalities involved could come to an agreement.
