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| It's Budget Presentation night in Prince Rupert as Ms. Corinne Bomben the City's CFO introduces this years Budget Process for City Council |
Among some of the notable differences between 2017 and 2018 that the CFO has flagged for Council are contractual increases of 360,000 dollars from the recently negotiated city contract, as well as an additional cost of 200,000 dollars, that form the recently ratified RCMP agreement with the Federal government which has the city picking up the local salaries.
As well, with Port Edward indicating that they don not wish to enter into another interim agreement on Ridley Island Tax Sharing, the City will be required to deliver an additional 300,000 dollars to Port Edward, making for a total payment of 900,000 dollars to the District as part of the agreement which has now expired.
Beyond the increase to wages, the report also makes note of a number of obligations that the City has for this year, including a loan requirement for the RCMP cell block project and the replacement of the Public Works building on Wantage Road.
On the revenues side of the ledger, the City anticipates another 400,000 dollar dividend payment from CityWest this year, while the projected increase in property assessment values from BC Assessment indicates a potential revenue increase to the city of approximately 560,000 dollars
And while Prince Rupert taxpayers won't be seeing any tax cuts recommended to Council for this year, if all of the financial projections hold true, the Finance Department does not foresee recommending for an increase to the mill rate from last year, with the City seemingly content to let the increase through BC Assessment provide for the number crunching for this years document.
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| The City's proposed mill rate numbers for 2018 |
You can review some of the highlight's that Ms. Bomben will detail for Council tonight from the summary page below:
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| A Summary of the Budget Report for Council to be delivered tonight by CFO Corinne Bomben (click to enlarge) |
The full report for Council is available here (it is the element of the Agenda noted as the late item)
The full Budget document for 2018 offers up a range of spreadsheets that provide for our first glimpse at the City's financial picture and the revenue and expense projections that go into budget making.
Council will also hear tonight, Ms. Bomben's plan to move forward with the budget consultation with the public in the weeks to come, as well as any other factors that the Finance Officer has compiled for their attention as part of the annual budget process.
The City's Finance Department offers a helpful tutorial through their website page, which outlines how they calculate property taxes each year, you can review that below:
The Budget work by Prince Rupert Council must be completed by the 14th of May, the city's annual property tax notices will be delivered to Prince Rupert residences following the adoption of the Budget, with the tax deadline traditionally in the first week of July.
With the start of the City's Budget process now underway, you can access all of the items related to the Budget from the archive page we have created to track the latest notes.
Tonight's Council session can be viewed through the streaming video option from the City Website and is also available through CityWest's Community Channel.
For more items of interest related to tonight's City Council session see our Preview page here.
More background on past City Council Discussion topics is available through our City Council Discussion Archive page.
To return to the most recent blog posting of the day, click here.
It's surprising that there is no mention of Watson Island. According to the attachments to Ms Bomben's presentation the City spent $835,999 last year and received no offsetting revenue. That's after spending $1,656,448 in 2016 (as shown in the audited financial statement), with no revenue shown from selling scrap etc. So almost $2.5 million has been spent over the last two years, but it's not worthy of note or a progress report.
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