County Council back at it for 2015 budget deliberations

Municipal councillors have returned to the money table after a holiday hiatus, making some progress on a new budget for the New Year.

County Council met last Tuesday to discuss the preliminary capital budget for 2015, with the goal of having it finished early enough in the year to get the ball rolling and tender projects before construction season arrives.

Staffers have given councillors two lists of proposed capital projects, ranging from new equipment purchases to infrastructure upgrades. The first list contains projects that are time-sensitive and need to be tendered early, while the second contains possible investments that are less urgent-but not necessarily less important, said senior manager Dan Small, noting that the items on both lists are interchangeable: the entire budget is subject to Council’ s approval and councillors can move things around if so desire, but some items are more pressing than others.

“This is an ongoing, fluid document. It’ s a draft, a proposal,” Small said. “We only have a certain amount of time in the year to get something done. The other thing is, we know there’ s only so much money to do the things we want to do.”

On that note, he says, County officials are predicting that last year’ s operational surplus will total around $18.4 million. That’ s $5.4 million more than they were originally expecting.

According to County documents, “This forecasted surplus can comfortably accommodate the total costs of projects on List 1.”

Councillor Tim Thompson wanted to know what overall dollar amount the municipality has to work with for an operational budget this year, but financial manager Maurice Gushta says that hasn’ t been determined yet because operational spending has yet to be discussed.

Acting chief administrative officer Shadia Amblie says the groundwork for the operational budget is being laid out, but Councillor Robert Richard says, for the time being, Council should focus on choosing capital projects since time is of the essence.

The County adopted an interim operational budget before the end of December, as it’ s required to do by law, but councillors postponed approving any form of capital budget until they’ d had more time to consider.

One of the items on the first list of projects that was readily approved was sidewalk repairs in Lac La Biche and Plamondon. To cover those plans, $900,000 has been added to the preliminary budget for 2015.

Interim senior manager of public works Brian Shapka told Council that administrators are looking to replace four kilometres of sidewalk each year for five years, a long-term plan that contractors are interested in and that may net a better price for the work.

Sidewalk upgrades have been a long time coming, admits Shapka.

“The sidewalk program is quite a bit behind,” he said. “We have a lot to do in both hamlets.”

Councillors have also added more than $500,000 in the preliminary budget for a new street sweeper and four clam dump trailers. With the trailers, which can be used for sand and gravel hauling, the municipality stands to save a lot of money, Shapka says.

In previous years, the County has hired contractors to do the hauling work, which has cost upwards of $600,000. By having and using its own equipment, the County can slash costs by as much as 40-50 per cent.

“There are huge cost savings to be had by doing it in-house,” Shapka said.

The street sweeper and the trailers were on the first list of capital projects because they need to be tendered early, but there’ s a second, longer list of potential purchases and investments that councillors still have to work through.

The items on that list range from finishing the sewer line along Highway 55 to demolishing the unused water tower in Lac La Biche to completing the already-operational Biological Nutrient Removal Wastewater Treatment Plant. The list has over $88.5 million worth of capital investments, which administrators note can’ t all be done this year.

“We tried to capture everything we saw in the capital plan,” Amblie said, reiterating that councillors can move items between lists if they wish to.

The preliminary capital budget is still very much a work in progress. Between the two project lists, Council is aiming to have a single document approved sooner rather than later in order to get ahead in the tendering process.

“Both Council and Administration have noted that in previous years the County has delayed tendering for projects and equipment, meaning delays, last-minute rushes to finish and higher prices,” a Council briefing reads. “The purpose of List 1 is to ensure some projects are started earlier and equipment is available to be used as soon as possible.”

The next budgetary meetings are scheduled for Jan. 26, 28, 29 and 30.