A significant increase in the number of trees harvested in the district has boosted the municipality’s bottom line.
Mission’s forestry department recorded more than $621,000 in profits for 2012, according to a report present to council Feb. 4. The profits come on the heels of an off year for the department.
Mayor Ted Adlem said he admittedly was the first person to jump on forestry when it lost money. He said he wanted to thank the forestry management director Kim Allan of for the $800,000 turnaround.
Allan said the rise in profits were projected to come in around $411,000, but an unexpected sale of harvested trees, higher timber prices at the end of the fiscal year, and tighter controls on expenditures boosted the department’s fortunes.
The forestry department is entering the final year of its five-year forestry cycle and expects to scale back how many trees it will cut in 2013. According to the report, profits for 2013 are projected at $130,000. That would mean the district’s forestry reserve fund would sit at roughly $900,000.
While staff looks into where some of the reserve will be spent, an option being considered is paying down the best on the remaining financing of the forestry department’s excavator. Purchased at more than $430,000, the district still owes about $250,000.
