Yorkton Council unanimously approved its Capital and Operating Budgets for 2016 at its regular meeting Monday. 鈥淎t the December 14, 2015 Committee of the Whole Council meeting the 2016 Capital & Operating Budgets were presented for adoption. The Committee of the Whole Council recommended to Council to table the adoption of the 2016 Capital & Operating Budgets until the January 11, Council meeting,鈥� explained Shannon Bell, Director of Finance with the City.
Tabling the documents did not spur community input though.
鈥淎s of the date of this report we have not received any comments or concerns regarding the 2016 Capital & Operating Budgets,鈥� said Bell.
The budgets which were approved show an overall 3.90 per cent increase; with 0.90 per cent going towards the day to day operations and 3.00 per cent would go towards large capital infrastructure projects.
鈥淭here will be a 3.9 per cent increase in property taxes in 2016, with a 0.9 per cent going to fund ongoing city operations,鈥� said Mayor Bob Maloney in a release. 鈥淭he remaining three per cent will go towards capital infrastructure improvement projects,鈥� he said. 鈥淭his has been one of the most challenging budgets the city has seen in decades and reflects the more difficult economic times,鈥� said the Mayor. Previous years have seen annual tax increases in the six per cent range.
On the operations side revenues from several sources are expected to decline in 2016 including;
鈥� Municipal Revenue Sharing from the Province 鈥� amount is not known at this time but an increase is not forecasted
鈥� Court fine revenue is down $65,000
鈥� Building permit revenue is down $38,000
鈥� Business license revenue is down $10,000
鈥� Bylaw ticket revenue is down $14,000
And there are contractual cost increases to deal with as well, including an additional $138,000 for janitorial at City Hall.
The majority of this is for the RCMP offices as there are time restrictions of when cleaning can be done and the contractors must be screened under Federal security provisions to be in the area, detailed material circulated to Council.
Other service contract increases are $60,000 in the Parkland Regional Library Levy and $70,000 for the transit services contract.
Another unknown moving forward are new contracts with the City鈥檚 two unions.
As of Dec. 31, 2015 both the CUPE and the IAFF Union contracts expired. 聽
Staffing increases for 2016 are limited to one additional seasonal Parks Department employee, necessary to maintain an additional 90 acres of property throughout the city.
The Capital Budget includes multi-year projects, such as the Main Sanitary Sewer Truck Main Outfall, the Rehabilitation of the Existing Sanitary Sewer, the Drainage Channel Improvements and the Culverts under Highway #9 have been adjusted to only include the preliminary work of the project in 2016. The actual construction of the projects will not be completed until 2017 at the earliest. If it is determined that these projects are to proceed then they will require long term financing in 2017.
In addition, after discussions with Council the document includes projects which may not proceed in 2016 until after the review of operations has been complete.
These include the City Transit Bus, Drake Field Spray Pad, Gloria Hayden Court Walls and the Farrell Agencies Arena Expansion. The estimated costs of these projects have been removed, however if Council wishes to add any of them back to budget we would just need to update the long term financing that is required to fund the 2016 Capital Budget.
The 2016 Capital Budget will be $19,786,355, which would require long term financing to carry out. The amount to be borrowed would be approximately $6,200,000.
鈥淥ur increase of just 3.9 per cent compares favourably when you look at increases in Regina (3.3 per cent) and Saskatoon (3.96 per cent), said the city鈥檚 Director of Finance, Shannon Bell in the same release. 鈥淭his budget focuses on providing the same services more effectively and at a reduced cost,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hese are challenging times as all cities face the large gap in funding to replace aging infrastructure. We recognize that large property tax increases cannot continue year after year, and Council and administration have worked hard to find new efficiencies in the way we do business to hold increases to a minimum,鈥� she said.
Infrastructure replacement and renewal are becoming the most pressing issues across Canada. As an example, Yorkton has approximately 150 kilometres of paved roadways, with 88 per cent in either poor or fair condition. All will need to be resurfaced soon or they will deteriorate to the point where they must be completely rebuilt at a greatly increased cost. 鈥淵orkton has made good progress in directing a significantly larger portion of our tax dollars to the Capital budget for projects like this,鈥� said Bell. In 2012 Capital allocations were $2,044,000, while in 2016 they will reach $4,667,600.
