In City Council meeting on Monday May 16th, 2016, finance staff with the City of Chestermere brought forth to council the proposed 2016 Operating and Capital budgets for the City of Chestermere.
Since mid 2015, the finance staff has been working on this 2016 budget, adapting it and altering it along the way due to the changing economic situation in our Province. In the request for decision that was presented before council, Ana Thai, Finance Manager with the City of Chestermere, stated “Development of the City’s operating and capital budgets involves consideration for all the City’s strategic principles, but in particular, using holistic views of the community in order to create a better tomorrow, sustainability and operating in a fiscally conservative manner are central to the process of budgeting. ”
The total capital budget, which includes corporate services, protective services, development infrastructure services and community services came in a $7,195,000 with the breakdown of where that money comes from looking like this:
* Grants (FGTF, MSI, ACP) = $4,114,000
* Reserves (Capital, Recreation, Streetlight, Franchises fee) = $1,143,000
* Contribution from operating = $278,000
* Offsite levies and developer contributions = $1,391,000
* Contribution from other sources = $269,000
2016 will see some pretty major projects occur, including a $254,000 ball diamond that will be built in the field at Our Lady of Wisdom school, a $223,000 refurbish project of the soccer field in the Kinniburgh Athletic Field and a $350,000 pathway build on Rainbow Road south of Chestermere Blvd. The Cove Beach will also see a $2,223,000 makeover that will take place over four years, with hopes of completion in 2019.
The 2016 Operating Budget announced that the Municipal Tax Rate for 2016 is being decreased by 4.9%. So in the given example by city staff, a property with an assessed value of $500,000 with an average change in assessment from 2014-2015, that property would see a $17 annual decrease or $1.42 monthly decrease.
“In 2012 when we had a massive Education increase, which we knew was going to negatively impact a lot of our families in Chestermere, we made a move like we did now – which was to take into consideration the impact on people in an already difficult time. We know people are impacted by the downturn in the economy and we gave direction to staff to bring us back the budget that reflects that, and they did that. The driving factor was the downturn in the economy”, explained Mayor Matthews.
City staff reported that the highlights of this 2016 operating budget were that there are sufficient funds to cover the current level of services and for all departments. There will be no cutting of services or projects, however as the city has put a freeze on creating new staff positions, these services might just be delivered a bit slower.
“Our ability to do hiring restraints right now is going to mean a bit more time at the counter, a bit more time before grass gets mowed – but it means that we are keeping taxes down, in a time where everybody is looking to tighten their own budgets. We looked at tightening ours too. We still are moving forward with some really good initiatives like the parks and pathways, and initiatives like the community garden we still have good things going on in Chestermere, but those bigger projects that require a lot of staff time and require a lot of maintenance and implementation, are being pushed off to the future and staff have done a fantastic job of squeezing an already tight budget”.
“We wanted to make sure that when council asked staff to tighten the budget, that we weren’t doing it at the detriment of future years and of future projects and future residents. Our staff are phenomenally gifted when it comes to finance and their ability to see in a two and three year vision for what the organization needs and what projects can be given some leeway and pushed off and what staff positions might be better put in place next year or the year after, as opposed to doing it now, means that we all have a bit more breathing room – but really, I think they have done an awesome job squeezing a quarter out of a nickel”, explained Matthews.
Two key points in this operating budget that city staff and council both acknowledged are often misunderstood by the public, is the WID Service Fee and the Education Tax.
The WID (Western Irrigation District) Fee has been in place for a number of years and it is thanks to the Western Irrigation District that we have our beautiful lake. The WID has a huge interest in ensuring that the quality and quantity of water that goes into the lake is very well regulated. The monies collected for the WID Fee go to the WID, it is simply collected by the City of Chestermere.
The Education Tax is regulated by the Provincial Education Minister and Municipal Affairs, the City of Chestermere collects this tax and passes it back to the Province. “We push them through the Urban Municipalities Association and independently every year to get them to do this themselves, but I can’t think of one thing the Province taxes directly. The Education Tax is a flow through, but we don’t get compensated for the staff time that it takes to create those documents”, added Mayor Matthews.
The Anchor will have more on this story next week after we have interviewed other parties to be able to present their views and opinions on this budget.
