BONNYVILLE – After two years of holding the line on taxes, Town of Bonnyville residents and businesses will see an average increase of two per cent on their property tax assessments to balance the Town’s 2022 operational budget.
This increase will be bumped up further by a 1.88 per cent increase in the School Tax Requisition set by the Government of Alberta, and the Seniors' Requisition.
“This upcoming year, 2022, sees the Town of Bonnyville having endured what is now year three of the COVID-19 pandemic and its related social and economic challenges,” said the Town’s CAO Bill Rogers, prior to introducing the 2022 operational budget.
“Our region has also, as we all know, been hit very hard, very hard by the economic downturn that began in early 2015, that we're hopefully starting to see some signs of recovery from.”
On April 12, council passed a motion to approve the 2022 operational and capital budgets at their regular council meeting.
Even with a municipal tax increase, Renee Stoyles, the general manager of corporate services, informed council members that $255,109 will be drawn from the General Operating Reserve to balance the operational budget, this year.
The final amount pulled from the operating reserve has increased by more than $100,000 compared to the interim budget because of a decrease in the Town’s assessments in both inflation and growth in most assessment classes, Stoyles stated.
The town’s total revenues in 2022 are anticipated to be $22,441,766.
However, total expenses in 2022 are estimated to be $22,696,875, which results in the roughly $255,000 operating deficit that will be offset by the Town’s operating reserve funds.
Since the interim budget was proposed, "We have had several unexpected increases to our bottom line, largely associated with increases to insurance and other fees that the Town has no control over that have resulted in an increase of almost $400,000 and expenses to our operating budget,” expanded Rogers.
Despite this, administration has been able to absorb most of these increased costs without further increasing the burden on taxpayers, other than what had been previously proposed.
“The Town of Bonnyville provides valuable services to residents with real tangible costs – and those costs have gone up significantly in recent years,” Rogers added.
Costs related to policing the community have gone up drastically as well, Stoyles pointed out.
“The biggest increase (to the policing budget) was to the RCMP contract and that would include costs associated with the Biology Casework Analysis. This was a program that was downloaded onto municipalities last year from the province,” she said. “Last year it was about $13,000, this year we just got the bill and it's about $25,000.”
It is also important to note, no funding has been included in the approved draft of the budget for the Clayton Bellamy Foundation.
The Foundation sought $100,000 from the Town in December, following the approval of the interim budget, to build a fine arts theatre in an undeveloped space at Bonnyville Centralized High School.
Additionally, this proposed budget does not include any transfers to the General Capital Reserve.
Transfers are proposed to aid in the Town’s future financial sustainability as per the 2020 Strategic Plan, according to Stoyles.
However, contributions to the fund won’t be included until 2023 and 2024 with the anticipated transfer of $159,240, respectively, to the General Capital Reserve.
There will also be no deferrals of penalties related to late payments of fees and taxes this year.
“In the last two years we deferred penalties for property taxes and administration penalties for a few months,” said Stoyles, “This year we have no bylaw in place to do that.”
Capital Budget
The Town’s capital budget came in at $25.50 million, which has been balanced using multiple funding sources.
The overall capital budget includes $9.63 million in grant funding, a $7.28 million transfer from various reserves, $4.23 million in debenture funding, and another $3.24 million from ID 349 funding.
“We've got approximately $19 million dollars to be invested in crucial core and value-added capital projects in the community in accordance with council's Vision Action Plan developed this year,” said Rogers.
“This budget directly reflects council's strategic priorities, specifically areas such as community expectations.”
Besides the usual necessary core projects such as paving, patching, and services to residents, Rogers outlined the highlights of the 2022 capital works projects.
This includes the design and implementation of a Town of Bonnyville app, a tourism strategy, continued repairs to Jessie Lake Trail on the north side from Beaver Hill Road to the Splash Park.
It also includes construction of the C2 trail from the Bonnyville and District Centennial Centre eastwards to the 711, which will be completed this year.
The expansion of this trail is to “ensure pedestrian connectivity to the fastest growing residential and commercial areas in town,” explained Rogers.
Jessie Lake water level studies are also planned for this year.
These studies will be used to examine potential plans to moderate the currently very high lake levels and to assist the Town with future recreation, storm drainage and flood mitigation planning.
Funds have also been set aside to allow for the design and possible construction of proposed Reservoir Number Three.
“The drinking water reservoir that is being planned for the east end of Bonnyville will ensure the Town meets Alberta Environment storage requirements for years to come,” Brad Trimble, the general manager of operation and engineering, told Lakeland This Week.
“It will immediately increase water distribution pressure and would allow us to start planning to decommission a different reservoir that has been in use since the 1960s. This project is contingent on Alberta Municipal Water/Wastewater Partnership (AMWWP) grant funding, which would cover around 40 per cent of costs.”
Traffic and crosswalk lights will likely be placed at 50 Ave. and 37 St. before the end of the year, as well as other planned recreation amenities, including the construction of pickleball courts, continued expansion of outdoor recreation facilities such as outdoor gym equipment and a beach volleyball court.
Overall, the CAO says the 2022 Strategic Plan successfully “identifies goals such as promotion strategies to attract residents, businesses and development and increase our assessment base continued promotion of economic diversification to create a stronger economic base for people who work in Bonnyville.”
The 2022 Tax Rate Bylaw will likely be passed in May following an analysis of the Mill Rates.
