It would be a neat package to present to local ratepayers if the City of Estevan could bring a simple, yet comprehensive financial statement and debt repayment schedule to the table for a public airing by early next year. Information from the Oct. 28 council meeting indicates this process is already underway.
For those of us who are somewhere below Economics 101 on the bookkeeping and accounting end of things, it would say something to the effect that the City of Estevan took in this number of dollars in 2012, and we paid out this number of dollars.
Something that simple would at least answer the question as to whether the City is bringing in more money than what is being expended.
Alas, life and the accounting world aren't that simple. That's why accountants go to university for four to seven years to get a handle on the complexities that invade their worlds.
That's also why local citizens will probably never be able to get a straight answer to the simple questions regarding our public financial picture.
Properties have undergone reappraisals, mill rates continually shift and school taxation levels are now the responsibility of the provincial government. Tax incentives or relief packages are doled out here and there to attract businesses and services. Newly developed properties are valued differently from older properties.
Service and licence fees slide up, government grants fluctuate with the changing economic times and with population growth or declines.
The list of variances and challenges is lengthy, but we expect our city councillors to at least have a workable knowledge of where we're at on the financial side of this city's growth pattern.
In other words, is the income stream keeping up with the expense stream? If not, when will it catch up and how will it catch up?
Those are two questions that probably can be answered within a paragraph or two on any financial summary sheet, and we expect they will be by year's end.
We bring the topic to the table since concerns have been raised of late regarding Estevan's increasing debt load and continual extensions of lines-of-credit and over-drafts.
Is there a need to holler "whoa" sometime soon?
On Monday evening, council heard from treasurer Jeff Ward there were some assurances that eventually all this civic growth will translate into enough increased revenue so that a debt reduction plan can be implemented instead of just being promised. We, as a community, are probably at a stage right now where there is no need to ring any alarm bells. We're pretty sure our civic pension plans are fully funded, and there are no economic dragons or skeletons lurking in dark corners.
The bookkeeping is certainly transparent for those skilled enough to translate the numbers into reality. It's just that some of us would prefer to keep things simple, waiting for the good word that our city's debt has declined from the current level of about $36 million, to something more manageable, and that a long-term debt reduction plan is in place. On Monday, we heard that plan.
Our city governors are well aware that it is very easy to be spenders and twice as hard to save, especially when the electorate keeps demanding more.
Saving can be painful but so is servicing debt if it gets out-of-hand.
