Council passed two important documents after review at the meeting. Recent changes to the Municipal Government Act (MGA) requires each municipality to have a three-year financial plan and a five-year capital plan to allow these places to look into the future and really solidify what their goals and aspirations are with estimated numbers to work with.
Lana Roth, director of corporate services gave a run down of the important sums of note as well as answered councillors questions.
The county has projected a decrease in assessment of $18,524,940.
She showed that leaving the mill rate at the 2019 level and keeping the assessment the way it is, would result in a tax revenue decrease of $365,528.
As for the 2020 operating and capital budgets, both were passed as well. The final operating budget came in as balanced due to a two per cent mill rate increase and a final municipal tax levy of $14,138,628.
Some won’t even see an increase from this mill rate as it focuses on residential assessment which can vary from year to year.
Council and administration are expecting major costs coming down the pipe after the provincial government announced they would be downloading policing costs onto municipalities as well as decreasing Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) funding used to supplement existing budgets.
The county has numbers increasing steadily over the next four years as the costs are added on.
In 2021, when the downloading begins, the county is expecting to pay $77,000.
At its peak in 2024, Paintearth will be shelling out approximately $232,000.
It has operating costs of $13,874,473, operating revenues of $1,353,365 and debt interest of $75,000.
The capital budget has expenditures of $3,501,700 to be funded from capital revenues of $2,240,000.
The sale of capital assets is worth $517,000, drawn from a restricted surplus of $729,700 and $15,000 of capital asset purchases to be funded through the 2020 tax levy.
“Good job!” said Reeve Stan Schulmeister to administration for their hard work on getting these budgets ready for approval.
COVID-19 protocol
After a special meeting of council was called, all councillors and administration agreed to carry out protocol for the
COVID-19 virus that is moving through Alberta.
Terri Huxley
ECA Review
