BANFF – The Town of Banff has spent almost half a million dollars on its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The $451,681 in COVID-related expenditures was disclosed in an administrative briefing on the municipality’s financial statements for the first six months of the year to the governance and finance committee on Aug. 10.
Council wanted to know if there is any indication from the provincial or federal governments on possible funding relief for money the municipality has spent on its response to COVID-19.
Town Manager Kelly Gibson said there has not been any emergency relief suggested at this point, however, there has been some indication about operational assistance.
“We haven’t got the details of what that will be, but the intent is to cover lost revenue or additional expenses,” he said.
“Whether it’s reported on COVID or just funded as a general grant, it’s hard to say at this point, but we do anticipate some.”
The communication budget for COVID-19 was the biggest expense at $100,000. There was also an additional $4,000 for communication surrounding the downtown pedestrian zone and $13,600 to educate people on the mandatory mask bylaw.
Other expenditures related to the downtown pedestrian zone included $70,000 for beautification, $48,000 for litter picking, $50,000 for traffic flagging and $3,000 for traffic signal revision.
The cost of COVID ambassadors on the streets was $53,000.
“We will continue to track the cost of our COVID response as we go through it,” Gibson said.
According to the second quarter 2020 financial statements, there is an overall forecasted unrestricted deficit of $219,100.
Andrea Stuart, the Town of Banff’s manager of finance, said it’s not uncommon at the second quarter to be forecasting a deficit because a large amount of spending, revenues, programming and projects occur during the busy summer months.
“We do have the busy summer months that aren’t considered yet, and especially due to COVID, there’s a lot of uncertainty about how our Q3 results will look,” she said.
There were several large variances identified in the second quarter, although a number of them have offsetting revenues and expenses.
There’s a forecasted decrease in business licence revenue of $3.75 million, which is fully offset by a decrease in contracted services of $3.75 million to Banff Lake Louise Tourism.
“That’s the payment we make for tourism promotion,” said Stuart.
A forecasted decrease in consumption charges of $1.08 million is fully offset by a decrease in transfers to the water, sewer and resource recovery capital reserves, while a $2.7 million increase in capital government grants goes to capital reserves.
There was an increase in wages, benefits and overtime of $223,000 based on work ordered by council for the Banff Avenue pedestrian zone, the outdoor seating on Wolf Street and hiring COVID ambassadors, as well as $57,000 in grant-funded positions.
However, Stuart said there were $17,000 in additional savings on top of the $1 million in wages and benefits savings that were identified throughout specific departments when the budget was redone in the face of COVID-19.
Of the total targeted $270,000 in savings for training, conference and travel identified in the COVID budget, she said that $217,000 has been identified throughout specific departments.
“We are still looking for an additional $53,000 that we will continue to seek as we move into Q3 and Q4,” said Stuart.
Councillor Chip Olver, who chaired the Aug. 10 governance and finance committee meeting, thanked administration and staff who have worked on these incredibly challenging budget issues through COVID-19.
“Q1 was fairly straight-forward, but Q2 has been so unpredictable and it’s amazing the job you have done,” she said. “Q3 budget will give us a better idea of exactly where we’re at.”
