The City of Humboldt released the 2015 budget a couple weeks ago and for the first time, it was based on priorities rather than looking at what could get cut.
When releasing the budget, the City presented a summary report that placed programs into four categories: sow, grow, harvest, plow. The City used the agricultural terms as metaphors for the status of the current programs. Sow represents programs that will see new investment, grow is for programs that require further investment, harvest is for programs that will be maintained at their current level, and plow is for programs that will be cut or reduced.
“We looked at the programs to get a detailed cost in terms of what results we want, what are they costing, and how much is the municipality subsidizing,” said city manager, Roy Hardy. “That’ll allow council to ask more questions and line them up against the results we wanted to see.”
Unsurprisingly, one of the focuses for new investment include the multi-purpose fieldhouse/theatre. Some others include investment in infrastructure, a New District Official Community Plan and Zoning bylaw, updating the City’s Official Community Plan and reviewing the fire agreements with surrounding communities.
Regarding the District Community Plan, the City is working with the RM in developing the two-kilometer radius around the city to ensure “proper interface” between the rural area around the city and the inner urban area.
The Official Community Plan is the City’s guiding document for planning and development. It’s usually reviewed every five years, but Hardy says it will be reviewed sooner now that they have values to build on. They will be making sure that future developments aligns and integrates those values.
Some increased investment will go into road improvements, sports fields and parking at Centennial Park, and water and sewer line replacements, among others. The fill currently out at the sports fields will be used to improve the drainage situation and prevent future flooding. Leo Parker Way – the road around the Uniplex – will be paved for better access, so no more maneuvering around giant potholes just to get to the parking lot.
“We can’t do it all at once, so we asked what can we do first? This (priority-based budgeting) process has helped us focus,” said Hardy. “We want to make sure it’s moving forward. We took a big project and busted it down into little positive concrete steps.”
The programs that will be maintained include active transportation, which means maintaining the current level of support for things like the trails system.
There will also be a continued focus on community collaboration in housing, health, and social services, revitalizing/supporting the downtown, and cultural and recreation programming.
Finally, citizens are already familiar with a couple of the services to get cut or reduced. They include the composting/brush removal program, new back alley development, and services provided on private property.
The highest taxation priority on the list is roads and utilities. Anyone driving in Humboldt can see that fixing the potholes and broken pavement is a big job.
Unfortunately, Hardy says it’s too big a job to be done all at once. The City just doesn’t have the financial capability to fix it immediately.
This limitation in financial capability means that road maintenance happens in order of priority. Various factors go into deciding how much maintenance a road requires, be it just a spot patch or entirely new asphalt paving. They have to consider the life of a road (high traffic roads have shorter life spans than low traffic streets), how much damage there is, whether there’s infrastructure underneath, etc.
“We have roads with pipes under them that need replacing, but not necessarily the road. It’s not cost effective to take out a good road,” said Hardy. “Instead of taking out a road bed, we’ve been trenching. We take a trench out of the center, replace the pipes, put gravel in, wait for it to settle, and then pave it.”
Hardy said it takes an average of a year for the gravel to settle. In the past, director of planning and engineering, Peter Bergquist, has said that roads can’t be paved when it’s too wet. The City also has to take into account the cost of materials as even asphalt has gone up quite a bit in the last few years. That said, a relatively new road might warrant more expensive maintenance to extend its life, whereas an older road might get a short term fix because it’s so close to getting a full overhaul.
That said, Hardy responded simply as to why a road might not be getting fixed immediately:
“It’s frankly beyond our means to do it all at once,” he said. “The amount exceeds our ability to reasonably tax people.”
Alongside road maintenance, Hardy said the City will also be focusing on water, sewer, and utility maintenance. However, the water and sewer projects won’t be supported by tax dollars. Instead, Hardy said they’ll be looking for opportunities of low interest rates to borrow money and applying for government assistance to help mitigate those loans.
“We’re trying to manage the cost of growth to existing residents, which is why we selected those projects,” said Hardy. “We’re only borrowing for high priority water and sewer capital projects.”
As mentioned previously, those capital projects are the new sewer lift station and the water reservoir. Hardy says those projects won’t be started this year, so no loans will be spent on that yet. This year will be focused on the designs only. In the meantime, tax dollars will be focused on maintaining the current level of road maintenance.
The summary reported that user fees increased on average by about two per cent over 2014, although some are higher because the municipality is subsidizing less (i.e., users will be paying more to supplement the decreased contribution from the municipality).
The hospital and storm water special levies will be continued, although Hardy said the hospital levy has only a couple years more to go. There will be an eight per cent increase in water and sewer rates and the road levy will increase to a minimum of “$5 to a cap of $55 for properties, based on assessment,” said the summary budget report to council. The infrastructure levy will increase to $10 for each residential unit and commercial properties will see an increase anywhere from $10-$150 per year.
“The levies are there because council wanted to be transparent about where money was going (rather than just putting it all under a general rate),” said Hardy. In other words, rather than lumping all the special levies under one general tax, the City broke it down for people.
According to Hardy, this is the first time the City is attempting a budgeting process like this. Chances are, it will be the way the budget is done from now on.
“It changed from what can we cut to what are our priorities? It’s an enabling budget and lets council set the line,” he said. “The debate ends up being about priorities and not what do we cut.”
