The 2018 budget has officially been adopted by the City of North Battleford.
At least, so we think.
The budget, which includes the three per cent proposed property tax increase, was adopted in a unanimous vote at council Monday night.
But mayor Ryan Bater was not in a mood to celebrate or to declare the process over.
“That is subject to the provincial budget delivery,” said Bater, “the timelines of which have not been revealed by the province.”
The Sask Party is currently in the process of picking a new leader who will take over as premier in the coming weeks. The city is anticipating a provincial budget to come down in late March-early April.
City officials are no doubt mindful of what transpired in 2017, when the city had to reopen its budget in the wake of provincial budget cuts.
“Of course, we were impacted significantly by that, and so we are going to wait until after we see that provincial budget,” said Bater.
At council Monday, city manager Jim Puffalt told council mill rates will not be set until after the impact of the provincial budget is known. In the meantime, administration will get the process rolling on preparing the amendments to the necessary bylaws that will come back to council for approval.
Previously, council had approved a 4.5 percent utilities increase, and had passed the waterworks and sewerage bylaw amendments at the Jan. 8 meeting.
Council had been awaiting further details on what the third-party grants would mean for the overall budget. At Monday’s meeting, administration came back with word that there would be no change to their original proposal; the property tax rate would still be set at a three per cent increase.
In the wake of that information, passage of the budget happened swiftly at council Monday, with very little discussion.
Council had already gone through the budget at length during three lengthy deliberation sessions as well as at a previous council meeting in December.
