WL Council's Sat night Budget Mtg

Apr 6th WL Council Budget Meeting Agenda

This past Saturday night while most were watching hockey games at home - your Williams Lake City Council along with the City's Acting Administrator (G. Goodall), Director of Finance (P. Higgins) and the City's Manager of Legislative Services (C. Bouchard) met on a Saturday night to finalize decisions around the 2013 City of WL (a rare occurance, I'm told).

I was the only member of the public to attend this nearly 1.5 hour long meeting

First up - Councillor Surinderpal Rathor who didn't mince words with his colleagues for calling this snap meeting after having worked 14 hours already that day.  After cooler heads prevailed - it was agreed that Councillor Ivan Bonnell, on behalf of the Finance Committee, would chair/guide the meeting. After that, Council had a general discussion on the format of the meeting and general discussion on the state of current budget numbers as presented by City Staff

Council then voted on the 7 Budget supplementals, as recommended by Council's Finance Committee as follows:

1) $20,000 for a Human Resources Data Entry Clerk - Approved with Councillors Surinderpal Rathor and Danica Hughes opposed

2) $50,000 for RCMP Special Projects - Approved
3) $9,000 for Paid Call Firefighters - Approved with Mayor Cook opposed
4) DCC Bylaw Review - Approved with Councillor Rathor opposed
5) Property File System - Approved
6) Develop. Services Website Content Review - Approved
7) Energy Planning Coordinator - Rejected with Councillor Geoff Bourdon in favour

Council also approved a number of capital projects in 2013 as follows:

a) Underground Wiring for Slater & Midnight Drive
b) Parking Lot Improvements in downtown area
c) Duncan Rd Cul-de-sac improvements
d) Half ton and 1 ton pick up for Works Yard
e) Stump Grinder and Skag Mower for Parks division
f) Combination Box Sander
g) New Salt Shed for Works Yard
h) Replace Computer Server at City Hall

But Council divided on some capital projects as follows:

a) Public Wi-Fi at City Hall/CMRC - Councillors Geoff Bourdon/Danica Hughes opposed
b) No half-ton truck for Fire Department (R. Warnock)
c) Decorative Stones on Lamp Bases in downtown area - Councillors Surinderpal Rathor and Danica Hughes opposed

Council also approved the budget timeline which includes a Special Committee of the Whole meeting on Wed to discuss the tax load situation in 2013.  Staff project tax rates, at this time, as follows:

Property Class	2012 Tax Rate (per $1,000)	2013 Tax Rate(per $1,000)
Residential	5.50	5.70
Utilities	40.00	40.00
Major Industry	89.375	92.75
Light Industry	43.395	45.04
Business	11.88	12.33
Recreation/Non-Profit	5.50	5.71
Farm	10.45	10.85

Council also projects that a public meeting will be held to discuss the 2013 Budget during the week of April 15-19, 2013

SBF