Council’s standing committee on finance started its utility fiscal policy journey Monday night with a presentation from a consultant.
Myron Moore, a principal with Conroy Ross Partners, the firm that prepared a utility fiscal policy review report for the committee last year, re-presented his firm’s findings.
Those recommendations include using debt for substantial, non-recurring projects.
“The point is you spread those costs over time so those actual people who are getting those benefits pay their equitable share,” Moore said when asked if the current practice of no-debt for growth projects isn’t meant to save on the costs of borrowing.
Council had a battery of questions for Moore and staff as they mulled over the information in the report.
Other recommendations include avoiding the use of grant funding for utility capital projects, treating utility reserves independently and updating administration fee calculations.
Moore was re-presenting the 2013 report but said the numbers then showed St. Albert’s rates were competitive in the region.
In the next 10 years, capital and commodity costs are forecasted to put pressure on rates, Moore said. The city pays for water from Epcor and for wastewater treatment from the Alberta Capital Region Wastewater Commission. St. Albert has no control over the costs for those services.
Councillors asked how removing grant funding could stabilize increases, why the current utility rate model is called a 100-year model and whether or not there’s been any public consultation done to see how residents might feel about borrowing to build major utility infrastructure.
Moore noted that many municipalities are facing the need to replace or maintain utility infrastructure as it ages, and that St. Albert isn’t the only place looking at rate increases.
Mayor Nolan Crouse moved that the consultant’s report be received as information and that administration come back to council in April and May with recommendations. His motion also stipulated that a review of utility capital be brought back to the committee in March and that outlines of different scenarios around utility funding and rate planning be brought back to the committee in April.
Council voted unanimously in favour of Crouse’s motion.
