St. Albert city council finalized its 2022 budget on Monday, with adjustments including an increase due to rising gas and diesel rates.
In December 2021, city council approved a municipal and utility budget that included a 2.8-per-cent tax increase to meet a net tax requirement of $117 million. On Monday, council approved administration’s recommendations for budget adjustments based on circumstances that have changed in recent months. The adjustments maintain the 2.8-per-cent tax increase, amounting to an extra $105 in property taxes for the average single-family home worth $450,000.
Monday’s budget adjustment marks the first step before council can approve a tax-rate bylaw and before the City can issue tax assessment notices before the May 31 deadline.
The motion to adjust the budget passed on consent, meaning it was not discussed by council.
Changes brought forward by City staff included an increased cost of $325,700 in gas and diesel. According to an administrative backgrounder, the increase is based on rates trending higher than originally budgeted due to supply issues “which are further exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.”
The City will also retain some $514,500 in COVID-19 relief funding by allocating it to the stabilization reserve, instead of applying all of the funding to the tax base. During the budget process in December, the City put all $2.5 million of its COVID-19 relief cash towards reducing the tax increase.
Maintaining the projected 2.8-per-cent tax increase will no longer require this portion of the relief funding, the backgrounder said.
Money in the stabilization reserve can be used to respond to one-off events as they arrive. Examples of past uses for the reserve include $135,000 for solar-farm pre-construction work; $100,000 for a library audit; and $300,000 towards an infrastructure opportunity council met in camera to discuss.
In February, council approved a year-end transfer of a $3.9-million year-end surplus to the stabilization reserve to rehabilitate the fund after the uncommitted portion of the reserve reached $720,340, the lowest amount the reserve had seen, according to City staff.
Another adjustment to the budget council approved included a $100,000 increase in assessment growth (additional taxes generated by new properties). The extra cash will be divvied out accordingly: $25,000 to offset the tax base; $20,000 toward to the City’s life cycle reserves (which go to maintaining infrastructure); and $55,000 to the City’s growth stabilization reserve, a fund that can be used to help offset future tax increases.
The final budget will also count in an additional $795,300 the provincial government pledged for St. Albert transit funding as operations recover from the pandemic.
An official tax-rate bylaw is scheduled to go to council on May 16, City spokesperson Cory Sinclair said in an email Monday.
