St. Albert has brought itself out from the red in the second quarter of 2019.
City council received the second corporate quarterly report of the year during its Aug. 26 meeting, which showed a forecasted surplus of $450,000. After the first quarter of 2018 the city shows a slight deficit of $188,000.
Coun. Sheena Hughes said the figure is a reasonable surplus, closer to the amount the city needs to stay on track financially.
“The first quarter we were in a deficit by about a $100,000 or so, and I just wanted to acknowledge we are no longer in a deficit,” she said.
The report said the surplus is primarily due to vacancies in staff positions and lower RCMP contract expenses.
Mayor Cathy Heron said in an interview the city tends to budget “very tight,” and operations are generally within a low percentage of what is budgeted for by year’s end.
“Some can argue a big surplus is a great thing, but some argue that having a tighter budget is a great thing,” she said. Either way as long as we’re not in a deficit I’m happy.”
Last year the city was forecasting a deficit of $476,000 at the end of six months and finished the year in a surplus position of $1.7 million.
So far, the city has generated $83.2 million in municipal revenue, which is 50 per cent the forecast amount of $166.4 million.
In total there are 170 municipal capital projects for 2019, and to date $54.1 million has been spent of a $165.8 million budget.
Heron said the city is always concerned about where the city’s revenue is coming from, recognizing it is generally from property taxes. She added the city is cognizant of potential reductions in grants down the line and will be watching the provincial budget this fall closely.
Environmental sustainability policy
City council revised its environmental sustainability policy, adding clauses about how the city will respond to expected climate change impacts, including “extreme events.”
The update policy was passed unanimously on council’s consent agenda.
While for the most part the policy was amended to update language, the policy included additions about climate change resilience and climate change mitigation.
Heron said mitigation is all about how the city can influence their impact on climate change, and resilience addresses how St. Albert deals with already tangible results of climate change.
“The resiliency is how we’re going to change some of our operations to deal with these climate changes,” she said.
One example she gave was around snow clearing. Now that there is an increased amount of freeze-thaw cycles throughout months that previously only saw a solid freeze, the city is having to figure out how to deal with the continual icing over.
The policy changes came out of St. Albert’s Environmental Advisory Committee.
