Cariboo RD wraps up Budget 2023 Process...

Courtesy of the Cariboo Regional District:

The Board of Directors for the Cariboo Regional District have approved the draft financial plan for 2023-2027 at its February 23 Finance-Budget Committee meeting. The financial plan provides for total revenue collection and spending authorizations of $58.41 million, with $29.83 million (51.1%) being financed through property taxation.

The financial plan was developed after several months of review by the Board, regional district staff, committees, and a three week public consultation process. Open-ended feedback provided by survey respondents consistently raised road maintenance and property assessments as concerns, despite neither being the responsibility of regional districts. Rural water systems and taxation levels were other subject areas which were featured in the survey and online feedback.

“The Board, staff, and key stakeholders in our services have put a tremendous amount of work to keep taxes as low as possible with this budget, while funding essential services we provide,” said Jim Glassford, Director for Electoral Area I (West Fraser/Nazko) and Chair of the Finance-Budget Committee. “While we are being challenged by extraordinary inflation levels, I am thankful for the collective effort to ensure that we are being fiscally responsible and only taxing at levels that are necessary to fund the services we provide.”

The financial plan would see total spending increase by $1.47 million (3.5%) over 2022 levels after removing consideration of retained surplus, while total property tax revenues would increase by $1.17 million (4.1%) overall. The plan also authorizes a $851,119 drawdown from previous years’ surplus, from $16.02 million to $15.17 million. Services financed by the financial plan include solid waste management, emergency preparedness, fire protection, recreation facilities, regional libraries, and land use and development planning.

By law, the CRD Board must adopt its financial plan by March 31, 2023 to authorize funding for 125 regional, sub-regional, and local services. The Board will be considering the adoption of the financial plan at its March 24, 2023 regular meeting. Financial planning documents, background information, consultation results, and meeting agendas are available online at www.cariboord.ca/budget.

Cariboo RD Area "D" Virtual Town Hall Meeting - Wed Feb 15th at 7pm

Good afternoon: 

 For those residing north of Williams Lake and live within the following Cariboo Regional District Area “D” communities: 

• Soda Creek Road (past the City of Williams Lake boundary) 

• Mile 168 Road 

• Commodore Heights 

• Fox Mountain 

• Pine Valley 

• Wildwood 

• Deep Creek 

• Tyee Lake 

• Soda Creek/Soda Creek Valley 

• McLeese Lake/Duckworth Lake 

• Macalister 

• Marguerite 

 I will be hosting a Zoom Town Hall meeting on Wednesday, February 15th at 7pm. You can participate in this Zoom Town Hall meeting, via app or by phone. The purpose of the meeting is two-fold: 

• Discussion of draft 2023 Cariboo Regional District Budget numbers as they relate to Electoral Area “D” 

• Update on work that I have been working on in 2022 and a look ahead in 2023… 

The draft 2023 budget numbers for the Cariboo Regional District as well as taking the 2023 Budget Survey can both be viewed at https://www.cariboord.ca/en/regional-government/budget-and-business-plans.aspx 

To connect to the virtual Town Hall meeting: Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84659024790?pwd=dHBoOGR5Y0haZGwvS1d5bjNoMS9wUT09 

Meeting ID: 846 5902 4790 

Passcode: 259424 

By Phone: 

 +1 778 907 2071 Canada 

 +1 780 666 0144 Canada 

Meeting ID: 846 5902 4790 

Passcode: 259424 

If you are not able to make this meeting and want to provide feedback – you can still do so in a couple of ways:

 

• Email mailbox@cariboord.ca 

• Email sforseth@cariboord.ca 

• Phone: 250-267-6725 

Thanks, 

Steve Forseth 

Director, Electoral Area “D” (Commodore Heights – McLeese Lake) 

Cariboo Regional District

Cariboo RD Board Starts Review of Budget 2023

Courtesy of the Cariboo Regional District:

The Cariboo Regional District’s Board of Directors has started to review cost estimates, budget proposals, and business plans for Budget 2023. The preliminary budget was presented by the CRD’s chief financial officer at the Finance/Budget Committee meeting, held on December 8.

The preliminary budget accounts for continued inflationary pressures, resulting in an increase of 4.1 percent over the total tax requisition for 2022. However, not every service will see a uniform tax increase, with certain services seeing higher increases compared to 2022. Tax requisitions for some fire departments, for example, will increase by ten to fifteen percent to support the replacement of expired firefighting equipment, while other functions such as sub-regional recreation will see increases below the 4.1 percent overall increase.

Individual property owners will also see varying levels of changes to their taxation depending on which services they contribute to, changes to their property’s assessed value, and the final tax rate established by the Board for each taxable service.

The Board has requested staff to undertake further refinements of the budget, which will be presented for further consideration at its January 12 committee meeting. The revised budget will also incorporate changes any changes to property assessments which will be released by BC Assessment on January 2.

The CRD will seek additional feedback on the proposed budget starting in mid-January. Under the Local Government Act, the Board must adopt a balanced five year financial plan for 2023-2027 by March 31, 2023.

More information about the 2023 budget is available at: https://www.cariboord.ca/budget/