Thursday, November 29, 2012

WL Council Budget Mtg - Wednesday Nov 28th

In a budget meeting that saw idiocy from Mayor Cook & Councillors Rathor, Bourdon and Zacharias fighting over the number of jobs lost at Tolko - Creekside.  Rathor says 140 while Cook says she understand that only something like 22-24 will have lost their jobs at the end of the day to Mayor/Council and City Staff unable to decide what constitutes a "provisional" budget and what process should be used to arrive at an adopted provisional budget on December 18th - Yesterday, Council received a presentation on and discussed the 2013 General Fund numbers (Operations/Capital).

Later today - Council will receive a briefing on the utility funds (Water, Sewer and Transit).  Council will also have to prelimenary decisions about the provisional budget with a final decision on it to be decided by Council at its' December 18th meeting

Particulars from the meeting below:

Present: 

Mayor Cook & Councillors Rathor, Bourdon, Bonnell, Hughes, Zacharias and Walters (left meeting at 7:01pm)

Staff:

Pat Higgins - Director of Finance
Rena Schill - Corporate Services/Records Coordinator
Geoff Goodall - Acting CAO/GM of Planning & Ops

Meeting called to order at 6:00pm

Mayor Cook asked for public input & Elke Reimer spoke on the necessity to have no tax increases in 2013, and Monica Yorski-Lamb of WL Tribune asked potential assessment loss of Tolko - Creekside closure and possible assessment value of new Sprucelee building (3rd Ave and Cameron St).

Members of WL Council also attempted to get Steve Forseth to provide input but he politely declined

Pat Higgins presented a Powerpoint presentation on 2013 General Fund with a question period ensuing during the presentation:

2012 Expenditures - 16,570,660
2013 Expenditures - 16,819,992

Reason for increases (1.5%) - Landfill costs and wages

2012 Revenue - 18,566,910
2013 Revenue - 18,289,653

Revenue increase of 1.5%

Surplus of 624,500 (224,500 available)

Strategic Community Investment Reserve - $117,750 available

Fiscal/Debt payment - $2,088,780

Options to balance budget in 2013:

A) Take $224,500 from General Surplus Reserve
B) Increase transfer from operating reserve - $100,000
C) Defer repayment of Internal Borrowing - $214,000
D) User fee increase
E) 1% tax hike = $100,000 roughly
F) Reduce Services

2013 Capital Budget Requests - $5,420,700 (General Fund)

Deferred Station House Gallery upgrades to 2014 - $160,000

Direction required on:

* Legislative Budget
* Supplementary Requests
* Possible reductions
* Capital requests
* Transfer to reserves?
* Other items for consideration?

Councillor Rathor attempted to move a motion to freeze Council pay in 2013 but it failed to get a seconder

Councillor Rathor/Bonnell moved:

THAT Council suspend its' Stipend pay policy in 2013 (no increase in pay in 2013)

Defeated

Councillors Rathor and Hughes voted in the affirmative (yes)
Mayor Cook and Councillors Zacharias, Bonnell, and Bourdon voted in the negative (no)

Councillor Bonnell/Zacharias moved:

$224,500 be moved from Surplus Reserve to balance the 2013 budget

Carried

Councillors Bonnell/Zacharias moved:

That $100,000 be moved from Landfill Closure Reserve to cover increase in Landfill costs

Carried

Mayor Cook/Councillor Zacharias moved:

That Council endorse in principle all committed to Capital Projects, as identified by the acting CAO, for 2013

Carried

Councillor Bourdon/Bonnell moved:

That supplementary items be prioritized to those which increase revenue or decrease expenditures for the City

Carried

Meeting adjourned at 8:55pm

Next City of WL Council Budget Meeting: Thurs Nov 29 at 6:00pm in the Rick Hansen Boardroom

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Not sure if Mayor Cook said ONLY 22-24 people lost their jobs or if it is just the way it was mistakenly worded on your blog but I don't think any loss of jobs is something I would downplay as only. At the end of the day if a new employer came to town with the promise of 20 new jobs the mayor would be out in full force touting it as a major plus for our city.