Canmore’s newest municipal committee began meeting this week when council met as a finance committee officially on Tuesday (Sept. 27).
Council voted to approve a terms of reference document to establish the finance committee earlier this year and the first meeting saw manager of financial services Katherine Van Keimpema go over the upcoming budget process.
With a newly established finance committee, which is comprised of council, the draft operating and capital budgets will be presented to the committee in November for debate.
Once council has deliberated on both proposed budgets and their property tax rate implications, a budget is expected to be ready to go to council for approval in early December.
“Our approach to the budget is a collaborative and holistic approach,” Van Keimpema said.
The process currently underway within administration has seen a first draft of each service area’s operating budget and capital budgets, she said, and managers will continue to work with their general managers to adjust the budgets before they are presented to senior administration.
The expectation is the finance committee will begin meeting on the budgets on Nov. 8 at 9 a.m. – with committee meetings also being webcast online.
Van Keimpema said administration will present a status quo budget scenario to council, which sets a baseline for the finance committee to consider. Once that is considered, council will consider service level changes that might alter the amount of money collected through municipal property taxes to fund the municipality. Council has set a tax increase limit of 4.5 per cent for administration to constrain themselves within.
That tax increase limit, however, may already be exceeded, according to chief administrative officer Lisa de Soto. She told council that with local Roam transit launching in Canmore this year, there would be operational budget impacts in 2017.
“Administration has had the opportunity to already look at draft one of the budgets, so we are going to be very challenged with bringing it in under the 4.5 per cent increase,” de Soto said. “As you recall, transit is a priority of council and since council has already given direction to proceed with local transit, the lion’s share of the cost comes in year two.”
She told council that all other service delivery level increases by the municipality or additional staff positions would result in tax increases.
Other budgetary considerations put in place by council are a 1.5 per cent cost of living adjustment for salaries wages and benefits based on the June over June Calgary consumer price index. There is also a limit of capital budget spending of $16.9 million. The five-year capital plan council has in place puts the 2017 capital budget at $12.2 million without any changes since last year.
The operating budget will contribute five per cent of the 2016 municipal taxes collected toward the capital budget – a policy a long time in the works by Van Keimpema.
“That amount of money helps to fund the capital budget,” she said. “We have been slowly working our way back up to that five per cent level.”
The first finance committee meeting saw council receive a presentation and update from the finance department on the year to date financials, as well as an update on capital projects currently underway.
Council also voted to appoint an auditor at the recommendation of administration. Van Keimpema explained that the auditors Canmore has been using since 2011 – Young Parkyn McNab LLP Chartered Accountants – has changed its name to Avail CPA and submitted a proposed fee schedule for extending the contract to audit the municipality for another two years beyond 2016.
“We feel we get excellent work and they are excellent to deal with, so it is our recommendation that council appoint them as our auditors,” she said.
The fee for the 2016 audit is $34,500 and Van Keimpema said the contract would limit increases to that amount to no more than five per cent over the next two years. She said the auditor’s fees have increased by $4,600 since they first began doing the job in 2011.
