St. Albert city council has finalized next year's repair, maintain, and replace budget, meaning more than $50 million of the overall 2024 budget will be spent to maintain city facilities, infrastructure, and equipment.
The repair, maintain, and replace (RMR) budget is finalized ahead of the city's overall budget to determine how much funding can be put towards growth and other capital projects. Each year, administration assumes a 1.5 per cent property tax increase when preparing the annual budget to account for gradually increasing costs associated with the city expanding, and existing equipment and infrastructure degrading over time.
This year's RMR budget, a draft version of which was presented to council last month, was approved during the June 6 council meeting almost exactly as administration prepared it, as only one motion to make a change was put forward and approved by council.
As the Gazette previously reported, next year's RMR budget will cover 38 projects.
About $31.5 million of the budget is for 25 municipal projects, including about $7.2 million for road maintenance, $490,000 for traffic signal maintenance, and $750,000 for parking lot maintenance.
Another major project covered under the $31.5 million is the city's roughly $7 million share of the St. Albert Place green retro-fit project, for which the city has received a $5.7 million federal grant for.
The remaining almost $22 million in next year's RMR budget will fund 13 utility projects, including $5.3 million for continued maintenance of the city's stormwater outfalls along the Sturgeon River, $4.9 million in repairs to the Oakmont water reservoir and pumpstation, and about $2.1 million for some underground water line maintenance downtown, in Braeside, and in Akinsdale.
The only council-directed change to the 2024 RMR budget was put forward by Coun. Sheena Hughes, and the motion added $225,000 to the roughly $53.3 million RMR budget to fully fund the city's multi-use trail maintenance program next year.
Hughes' motion passed, with Mayor Cathy Heron, Coun. Ken MacKay, and Coun. Mike Killick opposed.
In the draft RMR budget put forward by city administration last month, the multi-use trail program was reduced by $225,000 in order to put that funding towards the city's sidewalk maintenance program, which city transportation manager Dean Schick told council is a greater need.
In an interview, Hughes said she felt the city's RMR program didn't need to be a “zero-sum game,” and the multi-use trail program didn't need to be almost entirely defunded.
“Just because one category was brought forward to have an increase does not mean that something else has to decrease,” Hughes said. “I don't want to have it be a standard that the trail system is optional for how well it's been maintained on an annual basis.”
According to a report to council prepared by Schick, the work plan for next year's multi-use trail maintenance program was not anticipated to put any trail infrastructure at risk, as there are currently no trail locations identified as extremely worn down or presenting safety concerns.
“However, there are existing locations of trails that are the next priority and require repair work to which increased funding would support construction to remove (or) replace these locations,” Schick wrote. “There are approximately seven locations which are rated at a condition level 4, which signifies that safety or functional concerns may be present and require investigation with a medium priority for removal and replacement.”
Schick wrote the additional $225,000 in funding for trail maintenance next year will address three of the seven trail locations identified as a medium concern, and will cover the design and planning costs for another three trail locations.
The 2024 RMR budget passed unanimously, with almost no council debate on June 6.
