North Battleford city council has passed a wide range of measures to address a nearly $1.4 million shortfall in the city budget.
A three per cent tax increase, as well as cuts and delays to capital and operating budget items were included among the changes.
City Manager Jim Puffalt outlined the changes in a memo to council Monday, which received council’s approval.
Here is a complete rundown of the changes to the city budget approved Monday night:
As expected, the biggest impact felt by residents will be a further increase to property taxes, on top of the increases that were already approved in December and January.
Council approved a three per cent tax increase, which will go on property tax notices as a separate line item. Puffalt called it the “Government of Saskatchewan Downloading Fee.”
“This one seems to be the most reasonable way to describe to people why we’re being forced to do the three percent,” said Puffalt, “not because we want to.”
That will cover $400,000 in revenue generation.
Also coming are parking tickets increases of $10 each (estimated to raise $50,000), an increase in standard and rush criminal records checks by $15 ($25,000), and raising an additional $25,000 from vacant property taxation.
In addition, many cuts and delays are coming to capital and operating expenditures in the city.
Some $110,000 has been pared from the operating and capital budgets for utilities, and another $415,000 is being pared from capital projects.
Among the capital purchases for 2017 that are on hold are a $150,000 tandem truck, $28,000 on mowers, $75,000 on the David Laird campground expansion, plus another $15,000 on shower upgrades, $50,000 on the 13th-15th Avenue walking trail, and $80,000 for a new loader.
In addition, a total of $408,000 is being saved from the general fund in operating expenditures that are being delayed or cancelled. Included in that number is the elimination of seven staff positions with the city which are being eliminated or delayed, all through attrition. Other departments seeing work delays are leisure services and the RCMP.
Speaking to reporters, Mayor Ryan Bater made clear his frustration with having to put off even more projects.
The projects have “been delayed for a very long time already, and now they’re going to be delayed further,” he said.
During the meeting, city administration also outlined four revisions to the planning and development budget as well.
The $65,000 set aside to formalize downtown parking is being repurposed. According to Puffalt, with construction of the new theatre coming up, it is not an opportune time for parking lot construction to happen. Instead, the money for 2017 will pay for environmental testing done in the King Street Station area, the proposed location for the new theatre. Parking lot formalization will come back as a budget item for 2018.
Also delayed is $50,000 for a golf course service line, a budgeted $110,000 towards a Pioneer Trail walking path, and the budgeted $910,000 to complete roadwork. A signalized intersection on Carlton Trail is being delayed to next year, as a master plan for the area must be completed in the meantime. An amount of $195,000 is needed in 2017 for the master plan, with the other $715,000 delayed to 2018 and put towards completion of the project.
The approach taken by administration in crafting the changes was to divide the burden on a one-third basis, so that the cuts to operations and to capital projects, as well as the tax increase, would be shared on an equal one-third basis.
“The intent was not to place the entire burden of this $1.4 million onto the taxpayer,” said Bater, “nor to place the entire burden of it onto a loss of services or capital projects, but to balance it out among the three, and council seems comfortable with that approach.”
A motion to approve the changes outlined in Puffalt’s memo to council carried unanimously, but it was not without considerable discussion.
The main concern was whether or not the budget changes needed to be approved entirely that evening.
There was some concern expressed by Councillor Kelli Hawtin about whether more consultation was needed with the public before approving the three per cent tax increase.
She wondered whether that proposal should be tabled to a later meeting. But councillors ultimately opted to approve all the budget revisions that evening, coming to the view there was still plenty of time to consult with the public on the tax increase before it comes into full effect.
“The three per cent levy doesn’t happen until council approves the taxation bylaw, which we expect will come to us sometime in May,” said Bater.
Bater also stressed this latest increase could not be put off until next year. “If we don’t do the property tax increase this year, we’re faced with an even bigger burden next year.”
Those are not all the changes approved Monday. In a separate resolution, council also agreed to notify the province it would no longer accept provincial prisoners at the North Battleford jail unless an agreement could be reached by June 30 on funding for those, with payment retroactive to Jan. 1.
Provincial prisoners are those who’ve gone to court and been remanded to the province. The city had been negotiating with the province on the issue for two years, City Manager Jim Puffalt had indicated, and those talks had gone nowhere.
In six other municipalities, the municipalities are paid to provide jail cells for their prisoners, but not in North Battleford.
“We think that we need to be a little more stringent,” said Puffalt, and that “something has to change.” This move is estimated to save the city an estimated $750,000.
As well, council passed another resolution where they agreed to notify the Government of Saskatchewan that the fee to provide firefighting services to Saskatchewan Hospital will increase by 100 percent, effective April 1. Puffalt said costs have gone up substantially for that service.
An opportunity the City may look at in the future for raising revenue are selling naming rights for all unnamed city building and building amenities, facilities and parks.
Finally, the city is considering what could be a controversial move outside the city: determining how many customers are outside the city who use specialized facilities, and whether it was feasible or practical to charge an additional fee for those users.
Puffalt indicated that was something he wanted to explore further. “It’s completely unfair that city of North Battleford taxpayers fund the Aquatic Centre, the Field House, 50 percent, and everybody else is able to use it at the same fees and not use property taxes to subsidize services,” he said.
Despite Puffalt’s comments, the city is a long way from decisions on that issue. Puffalt pledged to come back in the fall with data on where the users are coming from.
Throughout Monday’s meeting, City officials were once again directing their frustration at the provincial government.
Puffalt once again voiced outrage about the province’s “very unfair” decision to take away SaskPower/SaskEnergy payments in lieu to the city. He continued to call it a breach of contract.
He also expressed outrage over the provincial Bill 64, which he said took away the municipalities’ rights to fight against this move in court.
“I find that very unfair, and almost vindictive to be quite honest with you,” said Puffalt.
There was also similar frustration expressed over a lack of consultation to the municipalities. Council had received correspondence from Laurent Mougeot, CEO of SUMA, asking the province when they would provide details and notification on the official impacts of the discontinuation of payments in lieu.
That prompted an outraged Bater to point out the City of North Battleford hadn’t received any official notification, either.
“Have we actually received any official correspondence from the province?” Bater asked. Puffalt responded they had not.
While there was a lot of anger at the council table, there was a desire expressed for more direct dialogue with the province on alternatives.
The city is proposing the provincial government adopt an alternative policy option to the cut in payments in lieu: by placing a one per cent surcharge on all SaskPower and SaskEnergy bills in the province.
That was the same proposal that Councillor Greg Lightfoot proposed to finance minister Kevin Doherty during the post-budget breakfast meeting in late March put on by the Battlefords Chamber of Commerce.
The City estimates that could generate an estimated $29 million for the province and allow the level of payments in lieu to cities to be maintained.
“I think council has to take a leadership role and somebody has to say something to the province,” Puffalt said.
Councillors supported the call for direct communication. Councillor Len Taylor made clear the impacts from the budget would be long lasting.
“We can’t let people think this is a short term thing,” said Taylor. He said perhaps there would be “bigger decisions” in store for 2018.
He said the cities “can’t be quiet” about this and supported direct communication with the government.
Taylor also noted the province was willing to admit it made a mistake in cutting library funding, referencing the announcement made earlier that day by Education Minister Don Morgan to restore funding that was previously cut in the budget.
“The province should be willing to listen to municipalities and say ‘we might have been wrong there, too,” said Taylor.
Lightfoot agreed with Taylor, and pointed out 109 municipalities were seeing their revenues impacted while 677 were not.
“All the government is doing by this is passing the buck,” said Lightfoot, who added “what they are doing is downloading, downloading onto municipalities. It is very unfair, and just not right.”
