City administration is to be congratulated on the Proposed 2016-18 City Business Plan and 2016 Budget recently published in the St. Albert Gazette. The eight-page pullout presents a detailed, easy to comprehend overview of the budget together with good graphs and tables and other interesting graphics.
A tax increase of 1.4 per cent and a utility decrease of 1.7 per cent is certainly a welcome departure from previous years. Taxpayers have never accepted the huge utility increase implemented last year and even the modest decrease will likely not appease anyone. Nevertheless the presentation is well done and gives sufficient detailed information for residents to digest and hopefully provide feedback to Council.
One area where further information may be required is with regard to the “16 new investments” or “business cases” as they are also labelled. If the $130,000 to “cultivate a green community” includes the street painting and faux brick decoration of the Bellerose pedestrian overpass we can be certain that council will axe that one. Obviously more detailed information is required on each of these for the public and ultimately Council consumption in order to form a constructive opinion on the need to add up to $1.678 million on these new initiatives.
It is interesting that the second “Pillar of Sustainability” is to “prosper through a strong and diverse economy.” The recent relaxation of the zoning requirements to allow a reduction in commercial development in favour of more residential on the Landrex lands obviously runs counter to the drive for a more diverse residential/commercial taxation split. If St. Albert is ever to achieve a 70/30 split it will be necessary to approve more commercial/industrial growth and less residential. Council has the mandate to diversify but it needs to act on individual development proposals if it ever wishes to achieve that goal.
The comment that “the city has no influence regarding the amount” collected by Sturgeon Foundation is somewhat misleading in that the city has a representative on the foundation who hopefully has some influence on the annual spending and subsequent municipal requisition.
It would be interesting to have a comparison of the percentage spent on administration (18 per cent) between St. Albert and other municipalities. Certainly over the past 10 to 20 years we have seen the size of our municipal administration increase exponentially. It is questionable whether council through the city manager has exercised sufficient control over the growth of the administrative team.
It is also interesting to compare the source of taxation between the three levels of government with municipal taxation only eating up eight per cent of your tax dollar. The message here is obvious – don’t complain too much about your municipal taxes as they are a drop in the bucket compared to other levels of government. Council however has no influence on other levels of government – its responsibility is to look after the civic budget, not the federal or provincial budgets.
Overall, the presentation provides good information to taxpayers and hopefully they will take advantage and provide feedback to members of City Council.
Ken Allred is a former St. Albert alderman and MLA.
