Duane Hicks
User fee bylaw up for vote
While town council is expected to pass a new user fee bylaw at its regular meeting Monday night, as well as receive a draft budget, Fort Frances CAO Mark McCaig said it’s still early stages for what undoubtedly will be a very tough budget year.
“On Monday we’re going to present the formal budget, that has the operational forecast and a capital budget, and we’re just beginning the process at the point,” he noted.
“Usually, it will come in and on the operational side, there will always be a deficit to some degree,” he explained. “Given the problems we’ve had, the recent things that have happened with the assessment at the mill, that’s a serious shortfall in revenue for us.
“That’s a serious challenge unlike we’ve ever had before, and the last few years we’ve really pared down the operating costs as close to the bone as we possibly can.”
The previously reported operating forecast shortfall of more than $500,000—most of which can be attributed to the loss of tax revenue from the recent reassessment of mill property—won’t be addressed by any “quick and easy solution,” said McCaig.
“It’s going to take a lot of hard work and a lot of commitment from everybody involved, councillors and administration,” he warned. “It’s not your run-of-the-mill budget. We had a significant impact with the loss of that assessment.
“I can’t understate the impact of that,” he stressed.
McCaig said that after the draft budget is presented to council Monday night, administration will take it back and have “a thorough go at it” to identify efficiencies and realize any synergies within the organization to bring that deficit down.
“We do everything we possibly can to reduce the costs on the operational side as much as we can before contemplating any tax increases or anything like that,” he noted. “The goal is always to bring it down as much as you can.
“On the capital side, we’ll have a capital budget, but then we’ll have to look at how to fund that capital budget,” McCaig continued. “Obviously, some things are not going to make it.
“On the operational side, there’s no provision to fund that capital budget right now,” he noted, adding that while some projects receive government funding, when it comes to the town’s portion, they have to look at their reserves and weigh whether or not to fund through long-term debt, which has a corresponding impact on future operational budgets with debt repayment and interest charges.
“How much can we stand? How big of a capital appetite can we have this year? How much can we support?” asked McCaig. “And then we make those decisions and get to a number and having identified the things we have to do, then we say, ‘What kind of a tax increase is that? Is that too much for residents to handle? Maybe we have to start looking at other things?’”
McCaig clarified that while administration is involved in the budget process, key decisions ultimately are political in nature and it is up to mayor and council to decide tax increases, as well as what services are delivered and at what level.
Starting next month, council and administration will hold special meetings every Monday alternate to regular council meetings to work on the budget. These meetings typically take three-four hours.
The budget is expected to be presented for ratification by council on March 9.
A public meeting then will be held Monday, March 23, with the budget anticipated to be ready for a final vote April 13.
McCaig noted some aspects of the budget, like sewer and water rates, haven’t been discussed much yet. Since the first bill for 2009 doesn’t go out until March, council still has time to make a decision.
User fees
Meanwhile, as reported in Monday’s Daily Bulletin, Fort Frances residents will see a three percent jump for most user fees, with a greater hike for waste management services, in the coming year.
Councillors received the 2009 user fee schedule as amended at a special committee of the whole meeting Friday afternoon. A bylaw to put the user fees into effect will be up for approval at Monday’s regular council meeting.
The three percent hike affects 400-plus services provided by the town, ranging from taxi driver licences to public hall rentals to photocopying fees.
But as previously reported, the price of bag tags and tipping fees at the landfill will go up more than three percent.
The cost of bag tags will jump from $1.50 to $1.75 (16.76 percent) while there will be a 12 percent hike to tipping fees at the dump.
This will affect the rate per tonne (which will rise from $53.57 to $60), as well as other rates (such as the cost of disposing tires and refrigerators) and the flat rates for various vehicles (such as half-tons, mid-size trucks, and full-size vans, singe-axle trucks, tandem trucks, and garbage trucks) when the weigh scale is not in operation.
The 12 percent increase does not, however, affect the charge for passenger vehicles, mini-vans, and SUVs when the weigh scale is not in operation, nor the minimum charge for when it is in operation—both of which will remain at $15.
With no user fee increases, the 2009 operating budget for waste management would be facing a nearly $76,000 shortfall, which is partially due to a decline in the commodity price of recyclables.
The town is being charged an extra $60/tonne to have its recyclables delivered to the Metro facility in Winnipeg each year, meaning there now is an additional $24,000 expenditure (included in that $76,000) added to the 2009 operating budget for waste management (due to the plummeting recyclable market, this surcharge has doubled since first reported at the Dec. 3 budget meeting).
Councillors voted 5-1 in favour of the 2009 user fee schedule, with Coun. Ken Perry voting against it.
Coun. Perry said the increase should be the other way around, with the town charging more for non-essential services which residents have a choice to pay (like using the arena) and charging less for essential services, like waste disposal.
But Coun. Rick Wiedenhoeft said that for council to balance the 2009 budget, they’ve “got to look at where we can generate dollars.”
In a breakdown of estimated revenues for 2009 provided by treasurer Laurie Witherspoon, she pointed out user fees account for 11.3 percent (or $2.422 million) of the town’s $21.436 million total estimated revenues for the year ahead.
The majority (56.5 percent) of revenue will come from taxes while 3.7 percent will come from payment in lieu, 15.4 percent from federal and provincial grants, 10.1 percent from other sources, and three percent from owned equipment rental.
Coun. Sharon Tibbs noted user fees are based on the actual cost of providing that service, and the public should take that into consideration.
Non-residents also will have to pay a little bit more to use recreational facilities here after the 2009 user fee schedule was amended to charge a 25 percent premium on the annual membership to use the ice surfaces, pool, and fitness centre at the Memorial Sports Centre.
This is an increase of five percent over the current 20 percent premium, increasing the non-resident membership rate from $519 to $540.
While other non-resident rates were reviewed, as requested by council after the Dec. 3 budget meeting, these likely will stay the same—one major reason being that hiking fees jeopardizes losing non-resident users, meaning less total revenue and more of the financial burden shifted to Fort Frances residents.
One area that still may go up for non-residents is library fees, which will be reviewed by the library board.
Currently, the family rate for non-residents is $55 per year while the contribution of Fort Frances taxpayers is about $72.
At a time when the town’s population is declining and those who live here grow older, and rely on fixed incomes, Mayor Roy Avis noted he wants to see non-residents pay their fair share of funds to keep services maintained at their current level—a sentiment shared by a couple of other councillors.
