St. Albert city council got a sneak peek at the 2012 budget at their regular meeting Monday afternoon.
Council got a first look at proposed changes to municipal fees and charges, as well as a quick peek at the three-year utility and capital budgets for 2012-2014. While councillors made some notices of motion, no official changes will be made until the formal budget process begins in November.
When it comes to fees and charges, city manager Bill Holtby said the city is looking at an across-the-board average increase of three per cent.
“Any of the fees or charges that have a policy associated with them that would drive the fee have had that fee amended … There are several fees and charges not driven by council policy, and the decision our senior management team has made is that we would add three per cent on average to all those fees,” Holtby said.
The reworked fees should equal another $609,885 in revenue for the city — the equivalent of a 0.8 per cent property tax increase. Roughly $390,000 of that would be a result of the increases themselves, while the rest is projected to come from an increase in volume.
One of the biggest impacts will come from increases to St. Albert Transit fees starting in 2012. Local cash fares will increase 25 cents, while commuter cash fares will rise 50 cents. Monthly pass prices will increase between $5 and $10 each. These increases take cost recovery for transit into “the high 30-per-cent range,” Holtby said.
Coun. Cam MacKay put forward a motion Monday to tie increases for transit passes for residents receiving Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped benefits to the increases in those benefits, but fellow councillors decided to take some time to think on the proposal.
Also of interest for councillors were new proposed fees for fingerprint services and criminal records checks. If required for a volunteer organization in St. Albert, the checks would be free of charge; however, if the local detachment were doing them for an organization outside St. Albert, the fee would be $10.
“It’s meant to be an investment in supporting our local community,” said Chris Jardine, general manager of community and protective services.
St. Albert residents requiring such checks for work or purposes other than volunteering would pay $50.48, while non-residents would pay $74.29.
Administration is also expecting an additional $149,185 in revenue from Servus Credit Union Place in 2012, mostly from increased volume.
When it came to the three-year budgets, councillors had some general questions about some of the projects contained within, but are saving most of their specific questions for the budget process. They did, however, lament the lack of project charters accompanying many of the line items.
“It’s very difficult to decide which road to go down when we don’t have a project charter,” Coun. Malcolm Parker said.
Coun. Len Bracko gave two notices of motion Monday, one to add $350,000 to the capital budget to pay for a light rail transit functional alignment study, and another to increase the amount set aside for a White Spruce Forest business case from $25,000 to $50,000. Coun. Wes Brodhead also gave notice that he was looking to move a business case for train whistle cessation along Meadowiew Drive forward from 2014 to 2012.
The capital budget includes $69,248,200 in funded business cases in 2012, $16,753,800 in 2013 and $17,567,800 in 2014. Funded utility budget business cases total $21,408,400 in 2012, $14,850,300 in 2013 and $8,974,300 in 2014.
Councillors should receive a draft of the full 2012 budget package for their review at their Oct. 11 meeting.
