WESTLOCK – Citing “unpredictability of some pretty big variables” the Town of Westlock will not have its final operating budget passed before Christmas — a first since 2017.
At their Dec. 13 meeting, councillors unanimously adopted an interim budget for 2022 that is 50 per cent of the $17,991,180.12, 2021 operating budget — at the meeting mayor Ralph Leriger said they “appreciate(d) the budget that administration put in front of council, looking at a status-quo budget in terms of service levels. But we know we’re going to experience a number of inflationary factors.”
In a follow-up interview, Leriger said that while the October municipal election has set them back a bit timewise, the rising cost of fuel and insurance, coupled with wanting to see what kind of year-end surplus they’ll post, plus the outstanding property assessment figures, led them to wait. CAO Simone Wiley said they’re aiming to have the operating budget back in front of council in March once they have those final assessment figures, which are slated to be done in February.
“We’re seeing some large inflationary influences and unpredictability of some pretty big variables for this year. I see other organizations just trying to paint a three per cent overall, or four per cent overall average inflation (into their budgets) and our administration didn’t do that because that’s the easy way out … that’s old-school budgeting in my opinion,” said Leriger.
“There are big increases coming in fuel and insurance, but there’s also little ones right across the board. And we’ll see about utilities, as (finance director) Julia (Seppola) has hedged us through those contracts really well.”
Leriger also pointed to uncertainty around RCMP costs and the push for a provincial police force, saying that following two-straight zero-per cent tax increases due to COVID-19 they need to take the temperature of the community as to whether it can accept a tax hike.
“And what happens with policing costs going forward with both the feds and the RCMP backpay issue and the whole move towards a provincial police force? So, it has us in a situation where we want to see how some of those variables come through,” he continued.
“We’ve achieved two, zero per cent (tax) increases in a row throughout COVID, but we know that we’re living on borrowed time. We achieved that by being conservative and by putting less into our capital reserves for maintaining our assets and that’s not a good, long-play game.
“So, we want to see what happens with assessment, what does the year-end surplus look like, respecting the fact of what our community might have for tolerance and the ability to pay for increases.”
