Estevan residents can expect to receive a moderate increase in their property taxes and an increase in their water consumption rates next year.
City treasurer and acting city manager Jeff Ward released the details of the 2016 budget in an interview with the Mercury on Friday afternoon. It projects revenues of $26.18 million and expenses of $24.64 million, for a surplus of $1.54 million before capital expenses.
The bulk of the revenues come from taxes and grants ($21.33 million), while the remaining $4.84 million will come through fees and charges. Ward said the budget calls for a property tax increase of about five per cent that should generate about $690,000.
It’s too soon to say whether council will want to shift some additional property burden on residences, rather than businesses, after a report from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business showed commercial property owners paid more than three times as much in municipal property taxes as residential properties. It was the second highest gap in the province.
“I would say a lot of the burden would go on residential; that would be my recommendation, but of course council can always change that decision when they start going through the numbers,” said Ward.
Operating expenses in the general fund are up a little more than three per cent from last year, when they were at $23.86 million. They do factor in a wage increase for the city’s unionized staff and Estevan Police Service members, as both have collective bargaining agreements that expire at the end of this year.
The utility fund will have revenues of $6.85 million and operating expenses of $5.41 million, for a pre-capital surplus of $1.43 million. Utility operating expenses are up more than six per cent from the 2015 budgeted amount of $5.06 million.
Ward has recommended a 10 per cent increase on the consumption rates for the utility fund, but the service rates will remain unchanged.
The budget also calls for $4.44 million in capital expenses, which would leave the city with a deficit of $1.46 million. The city will borrow $1.5 million to offset the deficit, but Ward was quick to point out they will also pay off approximately $4.1 million in debt, leaving their overall debt load at about $29 million.
“We’re taking out longer life loans at smaller amounts to help our cash flow,” said Ward.
The capital budget includes items connected to Estevan hosting the 2016 Crescent Point Energy Western Canada Cup hockey tournament and the Saskatchewan Summer Games. A back-up ice compressor will be purchased for Affinity Place, so if anything happens to the ice plant during the Western Canada Cup, there won’t be any interruptions for the games.
Kensington Avenue from King Street to the city limits is slated to be resurfaced next year, just in time for the Summer Games.
“There are some base works on a bunch of gravel roads that PDAP (Provincial Disaster Assistance Program) is still assisting us with,” said Ward. “The base work on Kensington will be funded by PDAP so that’s repairing the base to pre-flood (of 2011) conditions.”
The city will be responsible for the cost of resurfacing Kensington Avenue, which carries a price tag of $750,000.
The majority of the base works to be repaired are behind the school, so the milling and paving on the stretch from King Street to north of the Estevan Comprehensive School should be finished in the spring, and the base works and other tasks behind the school could happen in the summer.
The city will also complete restoration of Milne Crescent – a project that has been on the books for several years.
“Out of the citizen satisfaction survey, there was an indication that roads are one of the biggest issues,” said Ward. “We believe that our arterial roads are some of the best in the province, although obviously King Street has to be repaired at some point in the future.”
He believes road patches that are needed following repairs to a water main break take too long to fix.
“We’ve done an exercise and had every patch in the city measured out, and the total cost to repair all the patches … right now is about $350,000,” said Ward.
They have allocated another $350,000 to cover any breaks that happen between now and the end of next summer.
“Hopefully by next fall we don’t have a single patch in the city that’s not unpaved,” said Ward.
The reclaimed asphalt from the truck route refurbishment earlier this year will be mulched and becomes like gravel, he said, but because there is still oil in the base, when applied to a patch, it turns to a solid state and serves as a good interim solution.
Also next year, the medians on Souris Avenue North will be completed; the vehicle fleet purchasing program will continue; and pathways in the Royal Heights and Trojan parks will be resurfaced.
As for the utility fund, there is $1 million allocated for upgrades to the wastewater treatment plant, and another $500,000 is earmarked to replace an existing manifold system, plus valves and 200 metres of cast iron transmission mains from the water treatment plant.
“Some of them are very old and are still cast iron,” said Ward. “There are three main transmission lines.”
The manifold system failed in the summer, which resulted in the city imposing temporary water use restrictions to make repairs to the transmission line.
The upgrades for the wastewater treatment plant will be for efficiency. They were supposed to happen this year, but the plans were shelved.
Kevin Sutter, who is the manager of the water/wastewater treatment plant, said upgrades would include flow stabilization, a new septage receiving station, new blowers, a new control structure and some new inline instrumentation.
“This efficiency upgrade essentially takes the existing infrastructure that we have at the wastewater treatment plant, and through flow stabilization and monitoring and higher-efficiency blowers, we can utilize the same equipment to meet expanded demands as well as rejuvenate the plant, which has been in operation now for 20 years ,” said Sutter.
The five-year capital plan, released in January, indicated several years of upgrades will be needed at the wastewater treatment plant.
The water main replacement program, which has been on hiatus for several years, won’t be resuming in 2016. Ward hopes that it will happen in 2017, although it will take a different form, as underground works are becoming increasingly expensive.
Ward hopes the budget can be released to the public this week. The city wants people to review the document and provide feedback through phone calls or written comments.
The public will also be invited to attend council’s first meeting of 2016 on Jan. 4, when they will be discussing the budget. Ward said they hope to pass the financial plan at that time, but he said if council receives a lot of response from the public, then they might wait until the Jan. 18 meeting to ratify
the document.
