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City funding gap a scary situation with scary solutions

Yikes! Monday, March 11, was one of the scariest city meetings I have ever attended.

Yikes! Monday, March 11, was one of the scariest city meetings I have ever attended.

I would encourage anyone interested to take a quick look at the video of the meeting: log into the city website; city hall and news; council and committee meetings; agendas minutes and videos; governance, priorities and finance; 3/11/2019. You can also look at the presentation materials.

The presentation outlined that the “city is now facing a serious capital funding gap” to fund any new projects. Plus the current tax rate does not even fully cover the budget required to repair maintain and replace (RMR) existing assets like snowplows, buses, buildings, etc. This is like saying we don’t bring in enough money to repair the leaking shingles on our roof let alone save any to afford a new TV.

The generic solution proposed was “we need to increase funding.” Let’s hope this doesn’t mean many years of significant tax increase?

Another solution being proposed is for St. Albert to create its own utility company, but remember that when we either pay taxes or we pay our utility bill it both comes out of our same pocket. We either pay taxes or a utility fee as a hidden tax. Municipal-owned utility companies are supposed to keep costs down, not be an increased source of revenue/profits to pay for other things.

I recognize when we pay our utility bill from Epcor it has a small provincially regulated profit in it, every year that profit goes to the City of Edmonton as they own Epcor and that helps to keep taxes down in Edmonton. However, I am skeptical that St Albert could start up its own utility company and be cheaper than Epcor that has been in business for 125 years and that does business across Canada and in the U.S.

Maybe the presentation by city administration was to, as they say, “light everyone’s hair on fire” to bring urgent attention to the funding gap issue. I hope there is similar urgency to what will be presented as options to close the funding gap at the April 1 ( and no this is not an April Fool’s joke) council meeting. We should all be “paying” (pun intended) very close attention.

Mike Killick, St. Albert

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