North Battleford city council has adopted a budget for 2013.
Two resolutions, one to adopt the water, sewer, and utilities budget, and the other to adopt the operating budget and five-year capital plan, passed council at Tuesday's special meeting on the budget.
The passage means the 2013 budget is now adopted and that clears the way for introduction of bylaws to set new rates.
The first of those are three separate bylaws to establish the rates for water, sewer and refuse collection. Those could be introduced as early as next Monday's council meeting.
City officials confirm bylaws setting the mill rate, will not be introduced until sometime in March.
All bylaws will require three readings in order to be finalized. After that process is over, tax notices will go out in the mail and city residents will see for themselves what impact the 2013 budget and the new increases will have on their pocketbooks following the new property assessment.
The public can view the final budget document at www.cityofnb.com.
No substantial changes came about as a result of a lengthy discussion Tuesday by Director of Finance Matthew Hartney. The budget incorporated changes to the preliminary budget that came about during last month's budget deliberations at City Hall.
The final budget - described as a "no debt" budget because it will not take on additional debt for the City - calls for a 4.99 per cent increase to property tax revenue, and 6.9 per cent increases to water utility and sewer utility rates.
The property tax increase is described as the "bare minimum" by Hartney, in that the increase will pay for increased costs only for fire, police and half of the parks and community facilities operations.
According to Hartney's final presentation, over half of the 4.99 per cent increase goes to policing, with a quarter each of the increase going to fire/protective and to parks and community. Of that increase, 2.54 is apportioned to policing, with 1.25 to parks/community and 1.2 to fire.
In response to a question from Councillor Ryan Bater, Hartney noted a one per cent rise in property tax amounts to roughly $125,000.
That prompted Bater to make his point that property tax increases were not going to be enough to fund City infrastructure projects and that higher levels of government needed to step forward with assistance.
"It's imperative that there's some sort of funding program that comes down," said Bater.
He said this was needed to "address our own infrastructure deficit. We can't really address it through property taxation, because we would be looking at a 30 per cent increase in rates, and that would be unfeasible," said Bater.
Councillor Greg Lightfoot echoed Bater's sentiment and noted other cities were "wrestling with the same battle." He noted other cities had either used up their reserves or had high debt levels to keep up their infrastructure over the past number of years.
"Unless the higher levels of government come to play, we will see significant increases in taxes over the next five, 10, 15 years, in order to make sure that our infrastructure doesn't fall into pieces."
On the utilities side, the increase of 6.9 per cent in water and sewer rates goes towards infrastructure and to capital reserves. In previous deliberations in January, council had upped the increase in water rates from a proposed 4.9 per cent increase to 6.9 per cent. The final budget document estimates that additional two per cent amounts to an additional $70,000.
That will be applied directly to capital reserves for underground pipe replacement projects.
The final budget also outlined the city's adoption of a user-pay model for city services in order to limit the burden on city taxpayers, as well as cover an expected 9.4 per cent increase in operating expenses.
Those new service fees include a $2 per ticket fee at the Dekker Centre for the Performing Arts to reduce the tax burden for expenditures there.
There is a $2.50 fee per round of golf at North Battleford Golf and Country Club, towards part of $80,000 in capital expenditures required for the golf course in 2013.
A major change coming this year is a $5 entrance fee at the waste management facility to replace the previous minimum charge. As well, the budget sets the total cost per tonne at $110. However, residents of North Battleford will receive a 30 per cent discount when demonstrating proof of city residence.
Another change will be imposition of a single waste management facility fee structure to encourage the regional community to be environmentally responsible. Fines for inappropriate disposal of items in residential garbage bins are going up substantially. A $6 per month recycling fee will be added to the residential utility bill to pay rising recycling costs. /that goes along with $9 for household garbage collection.
The recycling fee drew the ire of Councillor Trent Houk. He voted against budget adoption resolutions on the utilities budget as well as the operating budget and five-year capital plan.
Houk said he couldn't support the utilities budget "because of the recycling fee. I don't agree with that; we had that in taxation before. I agree with showing the public the true cost, but I'd like to see a mandatory recycling system out there. For me as a taxpayer, and a utility ratepayer, it's a double whammy because I've gone my own way to purchase my own bin and do the right thing to have the convenience at my house. To have to pay it twice seems unfair without having a mandatory door-to-door system in place."
While both Bater and Councillor Greg Lightfoot said they agreed with Houk's sentiment, they nevertheless said they would be supporting the utilities budget. Bater said he "looked forward to the discussion and debate over the coming year" on the issue.
Houk indicated he would save his comments about the operations and capital budget for when those related bylaws are debated later on.
Both budget adoption resolutions passed by a margin of 4-1. Councillors Don Buglas and Ray Fox were not present for Tuesday's special meeting.)
In speaking to reporters, Mayor Ian Hamilton did not appeared bothered by Houk's two "no" votes on the budget.
"For the majority of council, they were comfortable with the overall principles and the overall trust of the budgets, and their impact on future rates and future property taxes."
Hamilton also saidthat the increases outlined in the budget will be acceptable to the general public.
He said, "4.99 per cent in property taxation is quite minimal in connection to the other municipalities within the province and other cities in the province," said Hamilton, who added the 6.9 increases in utility rates were comparable as well.
He also noted the shift to a user-pay model and that the increase in prices "will offset the cost to the city for capital contributions and other costs by the city."
"You hate increasing costs at any time, but some of these things are absolutely necessary," said Hamilton.
