ATHABASCA – An unexpected funding windfall from the provincial government helped the Town of Athabasca meet its funding commitment to the Athabasca Regional Multiplex, but concerns about the facility’s drain on the town’s resources still remain.
Thanks to a Dec. 15 announcement that the town’s Local Government Fiscal Framework (LGFF) funds would be increased by $179,000, Athabasca was able to increase their contribution for the multiplex’s capital budget from the planned $50,000 to the asked for $95,000. During the Dec. 19 council meeting, councillors unanimously voted to approve the last-minute increase to the capital budget.
“The multiplex plays a big part in our community, it’s the hub of our community and our region, recreationally” said Balay. “Right now, the impact that it has on the town, with the amount of money we put in, it’s a much larger degree than it is for our regional partner.”
Athabasca County and the town split the operating and capital costs for the building 50/50, but with the town tightening its coin purse across the board, Balay said the multiplex’s expenses are getting harder to justify.
“We’re realizing that at some point, we’re going to have to put a cap on what we can afford as a municipality to put towards that. That’s where we’re at now,” said Balay.
The town has budgeted $1.4 million for the multiplex, the majority of which covers the operational costs of the building. Balay confirmed that there were no plans to reduce operational funding from the town, and he held the door open for maintained capital funding if operational costs were to go down.
“If the operational costs were to go down for the multiplex, it would result in a smaller deficit,” said Balay in response to a question about a planned solar project that could cut the building's utility fees substantially. “There would be more of a surplus we could transfer to reserves, which could cap off capital projects.”
If costs don’t go down, one idea put forward by Balay would be tying the multiplex’s capital funding to the town’s LGFF funding.
“What we’re going to look at is a formula that says going forward we’re going to put X percentage of our grant funding that we get from the province, and that’ll be the capped percentage that goes to recreation,” said Balay. “That’ll probably be on a sliding scale similar to what the province does with municipalities now under LGFF. When times are good you get more money, but when the surplus isn’t as big the percentage that you get will be reduced.”
A concerned county
Athabasca County Reeve Brian Hall said the news was a concern for the county.
“It’s deeply worrying that our partner may not have the resources to adequately maintain a joint asset,” said Hall.
Part of the concern is that there isn’t an agreement in place for what happens in this scenario, at least not to Hall’s knowledge.
“Surprisingly no, there isn’t (a plan) as far as I’m aware,” said the reeve. “The town and the county are joint owners of this property, but there’s a society that runs it, and they jointly fund the society. Interestingly, out of the eight municipalities that use the facility, only two contribute to the operating costs.”
Hall also recognized the efforts that the Athabasca Regional Multiplex Society (ARMS) had been making to cut down costs and increase revenues.
“Recreation will never pay its own way, but the ARMS board from my observations has been working to increase utilization and increase revenue,” said Hall. “The other side of it is the expense side — ARMS is also very careful with their spending as far as I can tell, they’re looking at ways to decrease expenses.”
Hall has high hopes for an upcoming multiplex project. ARMS has applied for grants for a solar photovoltaic project that would decrease utility costs substantially. Both the town and county have put the money aside — the town motioned to put its contribution into a restricted reserve to maintain control over the interest — but the funding is contingent on the grant coming through.
“That will have an incredible impact on the budget of the facility,” said Hall. “It’s important to secure it. The grant for the solar project will make a massive reduction in utilities. It’s a really important way to reduce the operating expenses and make it more affordable for both of the partners.”
ARMS is looking at other ways of making the budgeting process easy on the two municipalities. An asset management plan, which board chair Ashtin Anderson said will hopefully be complete by July, will allow for more long-term planning.
“It will allow us to look at what the future capital requirements will be. This building is starting to get older and the maintenance costs are eye-opening. I never could have guessed that it costs so much to maintain this building,” said Anderson. “We really need to quit being so reactionary, where we’re waiting until things break down to try and fix them. We need to plan ahead so that it’s more financially predictable.”
