The Westlock Foundation’s requisition is virtually unchanged from last year.
Foundation CEO Dennis Magnusson informed the four municipalities that fund the seniors’ housing organization in a letter dated March 21, 2014 that it requires $1,197,659 to cover its 2014 operating budget.
Included in the requisition is $318,000 to cover a deficit from 2013, Magnusson wrote.
This year’s requisition is only $10,654, or 0.898 per cent, more than the $1,187,005 requisitioned in 2013.
It’s the second-straight year the foundation has asked for more than $1 million from its member municipalities. In 2012 it only requested approximately $460,000.
Foundation board vice chair Clem Fagnan said he was not exactly thrilled with the high requisition for a second year in a row, but there wasn’t much that could be done to avoid it thanks to the situation that resulted from the Pembina Lodge expansion.
“We had to hire people in case it got filled up and it didn’t get filled up so we had to pay them and train them,” he said. “That was the way it was set up and it didn’t work out the way it should have.”
Ultimately, mistakes were made, he said, and now all that remains is working to rectify those errors.
“The only thing you can do is try and lower it for next year,” he said.
Fagnan added he believes the process to eventually lower the requisition in future years has already started with the staffing reductions that took effect in January.
From town deputy mayor Sheila Foley’s perspective, having the 2014 requisition remain virtually identical to the 2013 figure is good news, as it means town residents won’t see as drastic a jump in their taxes as they did last year.
However, she wasn’t able to comment on the mill rates that will be used to determine how much property tax residents will be required to pay as she and the rest of council won’t find out that information until the April 22 meeting.
Looking to 2015 and beyond, Foley said she knows in which direction she would like to see the requisition head.
“My wish is that it doesn’t ever increase and that in the years to come there will be a slow reduction in the requisition,” she said.
The foundation’s requisition has not been addressed by either Westlock County of Village of Clyde councillors yet.
There are four municipalities that contribute the funds to keep the Westlock Foundation running — the town, Westlock County, the Village of Clyde and the M.D. of Lesser Slave River.
The town’s share is 30.48 per cent, which equals $365,091.97 this year. The county is responsible for 54.83 per cent of the requisition, totalling $656,636.22. Clyde is on the hook for 1.65 per cent, or $19,770.985. Lesser Slave River’s share is 13.04 per cent, representing $156,159.84.
As reported last year, the reason for the sharp increase in the 2013 requisition, and why it remains more than two-and-a-half times what it was in 2012, is the foundation intends to expedite repaying the loans taken out to pay for the Pembina Lodge expansion, which included a three-year, $1-million loan.
Former board chair David Truckey said last March the foundation previously applied $500,000 to that loan, and used last year’s requisition to further pay down that debt.
“In essence we’ve shortened our loan payments up from what they were going to be,” he said, explaining the goal is to pay off the $1 million in two years instead of three.
Truckey added the requisition would remain elevated beyond 2013 to pay off the debt, but could not forecast when requisitions would return to pre-2013 levels.
