BONNYVILLE – The Town of Bonnyville’s 2021 budget open house looked quite different this year.
Instead of residents filing into council chambers to hear the breakdowns of the operating and capital budgets, the Dec. 1 event saw people watching through their computers and sending in their comments and questions via email.
Administration presented the second drafts of the operating and capital budgets in order to gain feedback from the public before the interim budget is passed at council’s Dec. 8 meeting.
One significant change CAO Bill Rogers noted was the proposed municipal tax increase, which dropped four per cent since it was presented to town council at an earlier meeting.
“The reason for that is because the ID 349 revenue was announced (Nov. 30) by the province and there’s a significant annual contribution that will come the way of the Town of Bonnyville for now and in the future,” Rogers detailed. “This enables us to decrease the amount of the tax increase that we’re going to be asking residents for significantly and still balance our budget.”
The 2021 operating budget broken down
The total revenues in the operating budget are anticipated to be at $20.71-million, which are down roughly $557,500 from 2020. Expenditures have increased by $231,397 from last year to $21.95-million.
The estimated deficit for the operating budget is roughly $1.23-million.
Some options provided to reduce the shortfall include deferring $750,444 in equipment replacement reserve transfers, maintaining equipment replacement amounts at $98,000, deferring $30,000 for lagoon dredging, along with the north side Jesse Lake Trail repairs for $20,000.
A two per cent municipal tax increase would generate $158,134 in the operating budget. The town estimates it will collect about $8.06-million in municipal tax dollars.
Town administration provided a breakdown of what impact that would have on homeowners within the municipality.
“For an average residential property in the Town of Bonnyville with a value of $305,000, that represents a tax bill of $2,175 a year, which is just over $181 a month,” Rogers explained. “A two per cent tax increase would be, for the average resident, about $43 a year or $3.85 a month. We’ll be looking at this very closely in the coming months and will have more information in this regard.”
Administration net costs are anticipated to increase by $111,616 for $1.52-million due to an increase in expenses for contracted services, such as janitorial, assessments, and audit, along with the inclusion of costs for the 2021 general election.
There were also estimated costs when it came to the school and senior requisitions.
“There’s a 2.56 per cent decrease included for the school requisitions based on a lower provincial equalized assessment and 37.61 decrease to the senior's requisition. These line items don’t affect the bottom line for the municipal budget as they are charged directly back to the taxpayer,” Rogers noted.
The net cost for police services was anticipated at $1.55-million, which increased by about $40,540 to reflect a ‘full complement’ of 13 members and costs for janitorial services that increased.
The 911 services saw a jump of $32,512 to $149,473 to accommodate Next Generation 911, while disaster services decreased by $5,000 to $20,000 due to expenses for training programs dropping.
Roads, streets, walks, and lighting had an estimated $2.51-million put toward it, with $220,000 going toward the annual patching program.
The costs for the Bonnyville Regional Airport dropped down to zero as the facility was transferred to the MD of Bonnyville as of Dec. 1.
The capital budget still has a significant deficit
With the total capital budget expenses anticipated at $36.41-million and revenues only expected at $18.91-million, the town is estimating a deficit of $17.49-million.
Rogers noted a number of the 2019 projects were moved to 2020, which had a hand in the shortfall.
“Due to the pandemic and the situation, we found ourselves in this year with the waterline costs, no resolution on ID 349, and some other issues, when we were planning for our capital budget most of our capital projects were put on hold except for core infrastructure services for 2020. A lot of this is reflected in the deficit next year,” he added.
Funding the deficit from future capital, funding a portion of the deficit from general reserves or surplus if available, and deferring projects to 2022 or beyond were suggestions offered by administration to address the deficit.
The municipality estimates to receive $1.76-million in grant funding, which was a roughly $90,2000 decrease from 2019.
From the $6.88-million the town will be receiving from the ID 349 monies, $5.64-million will go into the capital budget.
About $2.78-million will go toward the back alley paving program, annual overlay program, a crosswalk at the A&W, recycling compound, and Christmas and street lights.
Infrastructure replacement had $12.26-million slated toward it, including parking lot upgrades at Notre Dame High School (NDHS), Pontiac Park Road rehab, North Point upgrades, among others.
The library expansion or relocation had $1.5-million put toward it, while a Fine Arts Facility feasibility study was also included for the cost of $30,000.
Parks had about $1.8-million put toward those projects, which includes a regional tourism strategy, resurfacing tennis courts or pickleball courts, tot lot upgrades, the contribution for solar lighting along the Jessie Lake Trail, trail upgrades, among others.
When the Jesse Lake Trail would be connected to the MD of Bonnyville’s walking trail was a question raised by one resident. Rogers noted the municipality’s plan is to complete that project in 2021.
“It’s been a priority of council to connect the 66th Street trail connection for the last year and a half, so it’s certainly our plan. We had some flooding issues over in that area in the last year and we’re hopeful that will be a factor in the upcoming year and we’ll be able to get that done.”
Town administration will collect information from the open house and any concerns that residents emailed to them before making any changes to the budgets ahead of presenting them to council during their Dec. 8 meeting, where they will pass their interim 2021 operating and capital budgets.
