Maybe it’s small town Alberta, but the fact all three local municipalities may not have their 2015 budgets approved before January ends should make residents a bit concerned.
After all, Edmonton approved theirs more than a month ago and one would think the much smaller budgets – by comparison – of a town, a village and a county would be less complicated.
One municipality gets a bit of slack as they were without someone to manage the place for several months, while one almost passed a budget save for some last minute panic and the other was in no real hurry after approving an interim budget for up to 50 per cent of what they spent the previous year – justified as normal practise so they had more time to work on it.
All of this indicates a lack of good planning, an abundance of caution in not wanting to make a potentially unpopular decision or it’s always been this way so why change.
Budgets are estimates and outline priorities, one of which should be passing it before Jan. 1.
