Mayor David Gillan, front centre, with council at Thursday's deliberation meeting. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

NB council

North Battleford wraps up budget deliberation sessions

Dec 1, 2023 | 3:15 PM

The City of North Battleford concluded its rounds of budget deliberation meetings Thursday.

Council sat as a committee looking at ways to whittle down the proposed budget tax increase for 2024 from the 5.12 per cent property tax increase recommended by administration.

They also discussed third-party and community development grant requests.

Also, among the asks council looked at was a proposal to build a new playground at King Hill Park in North Battleford. The city can receive a grant to help with part of the cost, so they were hesitant to defer the project in case the grant isn’t available next year.

“I’d recommend leaving it in [the proposed budget] and reviewing it,” Mayor David Gillan said. “I’d hate to lose those things [the funding dollars].”

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He noted council still needs to see and approve the project. The work will be done next year if it goes ahead.

Among the asks was administration’s request of $40,000 to renovate the old council chambers at City Hall. The project would involve turning the room into a space for offices and a large boardroom to accommodate meetings. The city’s current boardroom is too small. The full cost of the project would be $80,000, so another $40,000 would be needed from a future budget.

The city also asked for funding to install security fencing at the North Battleford Cameron McIntosh Airport to increase safety on the runways.

The unbudgeted items included a proposal for extra staff positions (six students) for the Parks and Recreation department to help with upkeep, at a cost of $63,478.

Following the meeting, Gillan said administration is still calculating the numbers at this point to try to bring down the budget’s proposed tax increase.

“Administration has to bring back a new calculation because we talked about a number of things that we think we may be able to look at, and maybe continue to nibble away at this tax increase,” he said.

Gillan added that council is still debating different projects, the priority and need for various projects, and how they are funded.

“We had quite a robust discussion,” he said of the meeting. “All councillors know that tax increases are not easy for our residents. A lot of people are on fixed incomes. We know that. Tonight we spent hours questioning administration: ‘Do you really need this? Do you need it this year? Do you need this particular type of item?’ There are lots of ways to look at expenses. We also look at revenues too … ‘Are we budgeting the revenues correctly?’ We dug in pretty good tonight, we rolled up our sleeves a lot, and we asked a lot of very good questions. That’s our job to question administration’s assumptions. Our job is to make sure we’re comfortable with their assumptions, Then, we can turn to the public and say: ‘Yes, we’re comfortable with this number.'”

Council will formally vote on the proposed budget at its meeting on Dec. 11.

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @battlefordsnow