Morinville town councillors cut, stretched and scrimped on the proposed budget last week, but voted to make the town's reserves the primary beneficiary instead of taxpayers.
At its Nov. 24 meeting, following presentations from administration and two poorly attended open houses, council began removing proposed positions and cutting spending in several key areas. The moves added up to approximately $100,000 in savings, representing a decrease of about 1.5 per cent from the proposed four-per-cent increase. Councillors voted instead to put the savings into reserves.
Morinville Mayor Lloyd Bertschi said despite significant strides in the past few years, the town's reserves remain underfunded and topping them up now will avoid future pain.
"We need to build our reserves to level out the possible increase in the future."
Bertschi said he believes the increase is a reasonable one and the town took into account the economic circumstances of the day.
"We are always prudent, but particularly with the downturn in the economy we wanted a reasonable budget."
Exactly how much money will be transferred into the reserves remains to be seen as administration works out the details of some of council's moves.
Councillors voted to discontinue the Interlink transit bus service, but there is a contract in place until the end of next year. They also voted to turn several proposed new positions into contract positions rather than hiring full-time.
Coun. Joe Gosselin also put forward a new project to include $50,000 worth of new outdoor exercise equipment he hopes to see placed along the trail system sometime this year.
The final budget will go to council on Dec. 8.
Water rises
Water and sewer rates will continue to increase as part of the town's strategy to recover the costs through rates rather than tax dollars.
The average utility bills will rise from $78.44 per month to $86.49 per month. The fees are still not fully covering the town's water and sewer costs and could rise again.
Bertschi said he and the other councillors don't want to see the town have to take on huge debt loads to pay for projects in the future. Increasing rates is part of that strategy.
"We are still very much trying to take a pay-as-you-go approach to these projects and perhaps other councils will change that in the future, but this is our approach."
In addition to $50,000 for the exercise equipment, councillors added more money for new equipment in public works, but the lion's share of the capital budget remains invested in the proposed cultural centre.
The centre already has $6 million in grant funding from the provincial and federal governments. The town will spend an additional $4 million from reserves and debt to finish the project.
Bertschi said beyond just the numbers, the budget represents a lot of improvements to the community he looks forward to seeing.
"The amount of work we are doing this year is going to be phenomenal."
For the average taxpayer the four per cent increase represents about $88 per year. A home valued at $200,000 would pay $62 extra in 2010 and a home valued at $400,000 would see a $125 hike.
