BANFF – The Town of Banff anticipates being $400,000 in the red at the end of the year.
The predicted deficit is based on the first quarter financial statements for January-March 2022, however much can change between now and the end of the year.
“It is not uncommon at the Q1 forecasting stage to be forecasting a deficit,” said Dorothee Esquerre, the Town of Banff’s finance officer.
“A large amount of expenditure, revenues, programming, and projects occur during the busy summer months.”
The first quarter financial statements, which were accepted by the governance and finance committee in June, show a $315,000 deficit in the police services budget.
“This is mostly due to lower parking and traffic fines and higher federal purchases than budgeted based on the finalized RCMP contract negotiations,” said Esquerre.
The bill for RCMP was $127,000 higher than budget based on the RCMP contract negotiations, which were finalized late in 2021 and came in higher than forecasted for budget.
Revenue from parking and traffic fines are forecasted $237,000 lower than budget, in part due to the cybersecurity incident preventing bylaw enforcement from handing out tickets for approximately one month.
In addition, building permit revenues are expected to be $100,000 less than the $300,000 budgeted. This is primarily a result of a permit being issued for a large project in December 2021, rather than 2022 as expected.
As of the first quarter, tax-funded wage/benefit savings of $34,750 have been identified from a total budgeted savings of $250,000.
