The proposed 2023 budget was presented at the first deliberation meeting Tuesday. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

Budget 2023

City administration proposing 6.57 per cent increase in budget draft

Nov 23, 2022 | 3:31 AM

The City of North Battleford administration’s draft budget for 2023 proposes a 6.57 per cent increase in the operating budget, plus a one per cent tax increase for a capital projects reserve fund.

Finance Director Brent Nadon presented the document during council’s first deliberation meeting on Tuesday.

“It has been a challenging year from an economic and financial point of view…,” he said. “Perhaps the biggest issue we are now facing is the emergence of an inflationary fiscal environment, a situation that has not been faced in Canada for over 30 years.”

City Manager Randy Patrick said the reason for the proposed increase is due to added costs the city is facing.

“It’s mainly because of the increase in costs that we’ve incurred,” he said. “Inflation is higher. Like every organization and even individuals, we have to find a way to keep things running, and we have to [factor in] those additional costs.”

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He said administration assessed the budget draft and tried to cut out anything that didn’t seem necessary wherever possible.

“We understand this is a significant increase, but it’s one we can’t figure out how to avoid,” Patrick said.

The increase from RCMP policing contracts is also impacting the city’s costs, similar to last year.

Other rising expenses the city is facing include the high cost of fuel.

For Utilities, the budget draft recommends an increase of 4.3 per cent for water services and 5.5 per cent for sanitary sewer services.

Administration is also asking for a five per cent increase for the Underground Pipeline and Asphalt Replacement (UPAR) program, specifically to focus on sidewalk renewal projects ($175,000).

“I think one of the things to remember is that this is a request from administration,” Patrick said. “This is not council’s budget. But we are asking for it.”

One of the items that administration is requesting in the budget is to fund a new position for a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Coordinator who will be involved in managing the city’s assets.

Mayor David Gillan said council will review the budget draft and deliberate on it further before making any decisions.

“As the city manager and finance director said, this is their proposed budget. That is why we are going through each department and looking at their point of view, and seeing if it’s the same as our point of view,” Gillan said. “The ask is not small… But we are dealing with some one-off situations, like RCMP costs. We are kind of catching up on the unionization of the RCMP that happened a number of years ago. We taxed quite a bit last year but not all of it though. So part of this increase is a one-time catching up…That in itself is quite significant.”

Gillan said another factor reflected in the proposed increase is a reduction in the city’s funding from the province’s Municipal Revenue Sharing.

“That’s because of the census; we did go down a bit,” he said. “Also, the total PST pot was reduced over COVID.”

He noted high inflation is also a significant issue.

“I think they [administration] have done a great job in this environment, even though we have these one-offs we have to pay for,” the mayor said. “But we’ll still work on the things we can control. We are still working on it. We’re still looking at all capital purchases. If we can reduce it, we’ll try to find [a way], as long as it still meets administration’s needs… It’s a balancing act.”

The city’s next budget deliberation meeting will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 29.

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow