Steve Rant - Budgets

1) City Budgeting Process - Spirit Square Project

Earlier this year, the City decided to spend $100,000 on re-doing the retaining wall at the Spirit Square along 1st Avenue with the matching $100,000 coming from the Province for this project. On Sept 8th, WL Council agreed to appropriate (take) $40,000 from the Surplus Account to complete additional works for the Spirit Square project which includes the replacement of the stairs from Haines Office World to the old Courthouse square (Spirit Square Site).

In my humble judgment, this additional money could have / should have come from General Revenues (2009 Master Budget - Capital Plan) because Council should have looked at this project holistically at the beginning of 2009 by deciding what works to complete, what matching funds from the Province were available plus build in a contigency fund for this project and budget accordingly.

Using funds from the Surplus Account (Rainy Day Account) demostrate a lack of planning on the part of Council for the Spirit Square Project and also shows a lack of fiscal restraint at City Hall. This is especially true given most people in the City are either living paycheque to paycheque or on EI Cheques which for a huge number of people, their EI Benefits will soon expire in October or November of this year

The Spirit Square project is an honourable project for the downtown core of Williams Lake, but Council could have easily committed to this project in January of 2009 while adhering to reasonable budgetary principles which includes deciding the scope of a project, determine what money is available from the City, Province and Federal Government and budget accordingly with a contigency fund being available for this project to deal with "unknowns" as the project proceeded.

As the WL Tribune stated today in their editorial - hopefully this is the last time that Council deals with financial matters relating to the Spirit Square project

2) SD#27 Budgeting Process + Annual Facilities Grant

The Board of Education for SD#27 budgeted for maintenance at our local schools and traditionally, the School District would use their Annual Facility Grant to pay for these maintenance projects. In August, the Ministry of Education stated that School Boards around the Province were told earlier in the year that their Annual Facility Grant was not going to be available and that they should budget accordingly. Schools Boards' have suggested that they were told no such thing. I can tell you that School District #27 budgeted for maintenance at local schools on the basis that the Annual Facility Grant would be forthcoming to pay for those bills

If the Minister of Education is telling the truth, then School Boards have only themselves to blame but if the reverse is true, that what occured is "immoral" in my eyes and the Ministry of Education should have given more notice to School Boards' of Victoria's intention to withdraw the Annual Facility Grant.

At this point, it appears that a communication issue between Victoria and School Boards' is involved here and I hope that this is clarifed very soon so School Boards' can complete their budgets for the 2009-2010 School Year. As in previous years, budgets for School District #27 + #28 will be tight once again, given the impacts of increases to MSP, Carbon Tax, etc. and so the push will be on to ensure budget impacts stay away from the classrooms, but I don't think Boards' will be able to do that this time around, given money is extremely tight and that student numbers are falling throughout the Province and are expected to do so for the next period of time.