[Dean2]

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

You don’t have a good honest view of the facts.

Companies of the last 10 years are not the same as 30 years ago. Tons more accountability to the bottom line.

In a hot industry as the profits rise the staffing, contractor, service company and materials cost increase. When the market turns those areas get hit in reverse.

Interesting you say you are fiscally conservative however don’t understand the UPC are working to reign in costs. Part of that is pushing accountability down to the hardest spenders to have them look closely as what they need to prioritize spending on.

This reduction of wasteful spending only comes when prodded and the socialist municipalities often push back hard and shout blame blame blame to deflect from their incompetence.

Case in point...Calgary’s excessive spending for years and extremely low staff productivity in many sectors.

Anyone who voted UPC knew fully well some cost reductions were coming. We need to stay within our means and not chock ourselves to death on continued NDP debt and taxes.

Well said. I have many times posted that the Provincial Gov needs to find a way to reign in the out of control spending at the Municipal level. This isn't quite what I expected but it wiil help.


Here is a previous post on Counties spending way too much money.

This is what I sent to the Mayor and Council about 4 weeks ago.

Quote:



In 2013 municipal taxes were $31 million, total Revenue for the County was $54.6 million. The annual Surplus was $12.7 million with an accumulated surplus of $208.1 million.

In 2019 net municipal taxes were budgeted to be $80.4 million, so 2.6 times what they were only 6 years ago. Taxes actually came in at $50.3 million due to delays at the refinery and a few other deferred revenues but even at that actual received tax revenue is 1.6 times greater than it was in 2013. Total Revenue for the County was budgeted at $102 million, more than double 2013, and came in at $86.2 million for the same reason. The budget had anticipated an annual surplus of $40 million and the actual came in at $21.3, similar to the previous year’s surplus of $24.7 million producing an accumulated surplus of $302.7 million. So even with the delay in receiving tax money from commercial developments the County is generating a significant annual surplus that will only get larger as those tax revenues come on stream.

At what point does the Council come to the conclusion that not only should residential property taxes not increase, but that it is actually time for a decrease in the Residential rates? The County will have almost 100% of the residential tax take as a surplus. These surpluses seem to be spent on an ever growing list of Capital expenditures and there appears to be no end of a willingness to find new capital projects to spend money on. The population of the County in 2013 was 21,000, according to the Alberta Government site, and according to the 2019 Detailed Census results the population has actually decreased to 20,506 so population growth plays no part in explaining this rapid ramp up in spending nor does inflation.

While I am fully in agreement with running a balanced budget, and that a certain level of capital expenditure is obviously required I am curious as to the grand plans underway that would necessitate running a $55 million dollar a year surplus, which is more than the total operating and capital budget only 6 years ago, to predominantly fund capital projects. Can you enlighten me and the other residents as to the rational for these massive increases in spending that are fully consuming very large increases in revenues. Thanks.
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Here is the double speak baffle gab response I got back from the Mayor. Unless residents start fighting back and tossing out idiots that vote for endless spending your are right, we won't be able to afford to live in our own houses.

Quote:The Mayors Bafflegab response. Pretty much all a convenient bend of the truth.


I did vote in favour of the 0%, I was not in favour of the .05% reduction. The 1.18% increase was to offset the new Police Funding model we now have to pay $586,497. into. We still do need to make the payment, we are just not directly funding it through a tax increase. Keep in mind, this funding model will have us paying increasingly over the next 3 years until we are up to $1,760,751 by 2023. If you follow Council closely, you will know that I have always advocated to be sure we get spending under control and find efficiencies where we can, increasing taxes to find more money is not where you start. Sturgeon Tax rates are very competitive in comparison to our neighbours and in comparison to other rural municipalities. Our past 0% increases have been a point that has created issues with our neighbouring municipalities that feel we should be increasing our taxes every year, and paying more to them for our residents using their facilities and driving on their roads. I will also mention that the provincial government is currently considering changes to the non-residential tax rates, by accelerating the depreciation scale of Machinery & Equipment Assessment. This could effectively remove 30% of our non-residential revenue and would have impacts to our tax rates and our service levels.

There are several costs associated with municipalities that have grown since 2013. Provincial downloading of several expenses, like policing is just one of them. Membership fees and administrative capacity required at the Edmonton Metro Regional Board, Provincially mandated Intermunicipal Collaborative Frameworks and Intermunicipal Development Plans, Annexation negotiations, declining Municipal Sustainability Initiative funding, aging infrastructure that required increased maintenance or capital cost rebuilds. I trust you have looked through the budget and the lists of projects. There are several neighbourhoods within the county that do wish to see capital investments to improve their quality of life, increase safety and perhaps encourage investment and increase job opportunities. Council needs to consider the opinions of all.

As you know, surpluses in budgets are to go to reserves to pay for items that we know will eventually need replacing or large expenditures that may not be suitable to borrow funds for. We have recently completed a Drainage Master Plan that will require millions of dollars over the coming years to manage runoff and water flow through and around the county. This is necessary to protect homes, infrastructure like roads and also productive agriculture land. Previous budgets left no room for this important and costly work. Bridges and culverts have been inventoried, condition rated and monitored, and necessary replacements planned. These bridges used to be the property of the province, but it was infrastructure that was 'given' to the municipalities by the province (I believe approx. 10 years ago) so we are now responsible to maintain and replace it as needed.

We had also undertaken an organizational review and restructuring in 2018/19 to be sure we are running processes and procedures in the most effective way possible. It is important to modernize an organization and be sure it is the right size with the right tools, before any consideration of new buildings are undertaken. We have reduced our staffing by almost 7%, before Covid-19 and brought the pay-scale into the 65% of comparitor's and not the 75% it had been for years previous. We are developing a Procurement and Contract Management position which has not been previously done and is extremely important to monitor expenditures and assure value in contracts. and If there is any silver lining to Covid, it has been the expedited switch to having people work remotely. As we assess our business resumption, we will be giving serious consideration to just how many people will actually return to an office and who is capable and productive at home.

The massive increases to capital spending that you are concerned about are, to a degree, a catch up of spending that was not undertaken for the past 5+ years as the organization was anticipating significant tax revenues that have not yet arrived. We have a Significant Revenue Growth Policy http://www.sturgeoncounty.ca/Portals...wth-Policy.pdf that speaks to the rational of how to spend the revenue when it arrives. If you have specific concerns, or further questions, please contact me or Cllr. Derouin and we would be happy to go over them with you.

Alanna Hnatiw
Mayor
Sturgeon County