At the council meeting on Monday, Nov. 7, councillors got an overview of the 2012 preliminary budget and, while they had considered having it adopted for the new council, chief financial officer Karen Blow said it probably won't be ready in the short time this council has left.
The 2012 budget will likely be presented to new council sometime early in the new year, she said.
It is not required to be adopted until May 15 but, as councillor Cro Lucas told the Undercurrent, council is doing what they can to "make this a better situation for the incoming council."
Blow said there won't be a deficit in the 2012 prelim budget, but the surplus will not be large. The biggest over-budget item was the upgrade to the communication tower. Initially penciled in at $18,000 in 2008, this past year the budget for the work was bumped up to $30,000. The finals costs, however, came in at $44,000.
The biggest unexpected cost was the OCP court challenge from citizens Wolfgang Duntz and Richard Underhill. That cost $29,445 and though the court awarded BIM its costs, Blow said the figure ultimately awarded will be much lower. Other costs include money and staff time spent dealing with the national parks initiative.
Also on Monday, council began the job of creating the five-year financial plan to enable current and future spending authority. Given that new events and new information during the course of a budget year has a bearing on it, the five-year financial plan is done annually.
This, too, is a project completed in the spring but Lucas notes council directed Blow's department to begin the process earlier to help the incoming council and because this year the financial plan for 2012-2016 will involve what he called a more extensive "core services review."
The municipality will be looking at services now supplied, the cost of supplying those services and ways of increasing money coming to the municipality, possibly through fee increases. They will see what, if any, services can be reduced or eliminated. The finance department will also do a comparison of fees and services in other municipalities.
The intention is to start now and be well underway by the time the new council is up and running and at the Monday meeting Blow walked council through the areas she and her staff are looking at.
