The 2014 budget for the City of North Battleford has been officially adopted.
Council voted in favour of adopting the budget Monday, and also moved swiftly to pass the amendments to the water and sewer bylaws.
The bylaws establish the water and sewer rates for 2014, putting into place the water rate increase of five per cent and the sewer rate increase of four per cent.
Those rates had been set by council the week before during budget deliberations, where they also agreed to the 5.99 per cent increase to property tax.
As it stands, residents will see no change to their bills for the new biweekly waste pickup regime, with the city keeping a $9 per month rate in place for the new biweekly garbage pickup and $6 per month for the biweekly blue cart recycling.
However, that's about the only item not going up.
The five per cent water increase, four per cent sewer increase and 5.99 per cent increase to property tax revenue are all likely to be greeted with groans from taxpayers across North Battleford - something Mayor Hamilton and others on council seemed to acknowledge when the budget adoption came for a vote.
"I know we did not make all residents happy with all aspects of operations," said Hamilton, but he noted administration was "charged with the responsibility of giving us the best product with the best value and I think we accomplished that."
Councillor Greg Lightfoot noted the biggest costs the City faces are largely beyond their control.
"A lot of the decisions we have to make are based on fixed costs we have largely no control over," said Lightfoot, pointing to such things as policing, firefighting and capital costs.
Lightfoot said council "did look hard, and very diligently," to try to find a way to cut costs, but "it was very hard to do."
In reality, most of the decisions on the budget had already been made during the three budget deliberation sessions held at City Hall during the past two weeks, with the final session held last Thursday. The resolutions passed Monday made those earlier decisions official.
Among the more important decisions was settling on the changes to waste management as the City moves away from communal bins to black and blue cart collection. During budget deliberations council agreed to go with biweekly residential garbage pickup from black carts, along with biweekly blue cart pickup.
At Monday's meeting, council unanimously passed an amended resolution to purchase 4,500 residential solid waste roll out carts from Superior Truck Equipment Inc. of Calgary, Alta. For $62.65 plus taxes, and biweekly residential solid waste pickup schedule with K&B Construction was approved.
They also passed another resolution to purchase 4,900 residential recycling rollout carts from Superior Truck for $62.65 per cart, as well as a second resolution to award the contract to Loraas Environmental Services Ltd. to implement a biweekly blue cart residential recycling collection and processing system for the annual cost of $288,612 plus taxes.
Officials from Loraas were at the meeting for the vote. Earlier in the evening, council unanimously defeated a resolution that would have awarded Ever Green Ecological Services Inc. the contract for a blue bag recycling pickup.
Councillors acknowledged once again the concerns expressed by residents that biweekly pickup would not be frequent enough to handle all the garbage.
They pledged to keep an eye on that as the new regime of waste collection goes into effect.
"This will be the starting point and we will certainly monitor over the coming months of operation to see what is sufficient and adequate to meet the needs as best we can," said Mayor Ian Hamilton, in response to a question from Councillor Don Buglas.
Councillor Greg Lightfoot concurred, but also noted the decision to go biweekly saved costs for residents.
The resolution to adopt the 2014 general operating, five year capital plan and utilities budget was passed, but it was not a unanimous vote.
Councillor Ryan Bater cast the only no vote in objection to council's earlier decision to defer the rent of Twin Rivers Curling Club for the Northland Power Curling Centre. Bater had also cast his no vote to that resolution last fall and he made clear he was reiterating that same stand.
"I still remain opposed to the decision," said Bater. "As I see it, supporting the budget also continues to support that."
Still, Bater said his vote was "not a complete non-confidence in the budget" and said he concurred with many of Lightfoot's comments.
"It was a very difficult process. Nobody likes to pass a budget with tax increases, least of all us," said Bater. "I believe we've done the best we can on the operation side."
The process is still not done for 2014. While the budget is adopted the mill rate bylaws must still be introduced and passed before tax bills go out to property owners in the city.
