The City continued its ongoing budget process on Monday, inviting residents to a third workshop, dealing with the operational budget.
Contrary to the capital budget, the operational budget deals with the ongoing spending of the city, including salaries, administrative expenses and contractors. Unlike capital projects, which are funded through surplus, operational budgets can be funded through tax revenue and potential tax increases.
Monday’s presentation covered the operating budgets of the information technology, public works, utilities, corporate services and fire departments among others.
While a tax increase has not yet been announced, Chief Administrative Officer Doug Allin noted at the meeting that staff are working within the parameters of asset management policy 808, which states that tax increases will come to no more than two per cent plus the rate of inflation.
Allin said at the workshop on Monday council would determine the correct figure to use as the rate of inflation, although many different figures peg inflation at between 1.5 and 2 per cent.
Information Technology
Information technologist Daniel Drexler gave a brief presentation of his projects and jobs for the coming year. Unlike other departments, Drexler noted his budget is spread throughout other budgets. For instance, various software and programs he manages are used by other departments, which then carry the cost.
A major development for 2017 will be conducting a security audit, Drexler said, at a cost of about $7,500. That will ensure the city’s data, including personal and financial information, are not subject to cyber security risks.
“My plan is to do a security audit on the outside of the network to ensure that we are doing and performing to best practices and that our systems are secure from hacking threats,” Drexler said.
Drexler also noted that the city had recently changed Internet services, increasing speed by 15 times and saving over $15,000 per year. That change happened last week, Drexler said.
“The [IT] budget is not just one that we charge to IT. Daniel’s service and products are charged to each department’s budget throughout the corporation,” Allin said.
Building Inspections
Soon-to-be-retired Manager of Environmental and Building Construction Services Wayne Kopan presented the Building Inspections report, noting that overall in the past several years building, especially residential homes, has been on the rise in Grand Forks.
In 2016, the city issued nine permits for new single-family dwellings and 18 home addition or sundeck permits. The total value of building permit construction is over $2.5 million.
Kopan also presented on the bylaw enforcement. Bylaw officer Bud Alcock was hired at the beginning of the summer season, and later had his contract extended by council until October 2017. According to Kopan, Alcock dealt with 53 unsightly premises, 72 water restrictions and 11 “transient camp.” Kopan also noted that Alcock attended various community events to ensure compliance with the permits granted, and reception was generally positive.
After a question from Councillor Julia Butler, Kopan explained that Alcock’s wage is a contractual service under the budget. The amount of the contractual services line item in the budget is $73,600.
“It is a lot of money to pay for the service, and I am wondering if the community is seeing $73,000 in benefits,” Butler said, while also acknowledging the benefit of having a bylaw officer. “It comes back to what our CAO always says about desired levels of service for the public. How much to we want to enforce our bylaws and is the value realized by the community for the amount invested?”
In response, Kopan noted that the workload of the growing building permits and bylaw enforcement is far more than one employee can do.
“I can indicate that without the bylaw officer there is way more work than one person can handle. Permits alone are full time, especially if it keeps increasing the way it has,” he said.
Several councillors spoke in favour of bylaw services, with many acknowledging the positive feedback they have received from the business and residential communities. Grand Forks Mayor Frank Konrad also spoke about the need to enforce the bylaws the city has on the books.
Kopan said that between the two budgets (building inspection and bylaw), there were savings of about $950. Kopan is set to retire at the end of April, although will be using significant accrued holiday time until that date, according to Allin.
“Being a 32 year employee, Mr. Kopan would have accrued considerable holiday time,” Allin said.
Financial Administration
Chief Financial Officer Juliette Rhodes presented her budget for the coming year, including a breakdown of her staff.
For 2017, the department is requesting a budget of $317,870. This represents a marginal increase over the 2016 budget of $312,143. Rhodes said the reason for the increase is mainly allocation of staff time to various budgets.
“A significant amount of wages and benefits actually get allocated across other departments, to utilities mainly, and what you see is that I have re-balanced some allocations to a more representative amount of time [staff spend in those departments], so it’s actually a slight increase to my own budget.”
Another major project for 2017 will be educating the public on e-billing options, Rhodes said. Through the mailing of bills and notices, the department spends about $20,000 per year on postage alone – a cost she said she’d like to see reduced through the promotion of e-billing.
Fire and Emergency Services
Grand Forks Fire/Rescue Chief Dale Heriot presented his budget for 2017 and year summary for 2016. In the previous year, Heriot noted the department of himself, deputy chief Kevin McKinnon and their 48 volunteer firefighters, responded to 442 calls and clocked over 10,000 volunteer hours.
A major project for the upcoming year will be the department’s hosting of the 2017 BC Volunteer Fire Fighters training weekend in April, which will see Grand Forks play host to over 300 firefighters from across the province. Another project will be continuing public input and work on consolidating RDKB fire halls.
Corporate Services
Corporate Officer Diane Heinrich presented the Corporate Services as well as the Community and Administrative Services budgets. Corporate services for the city include preparing policies, bylaw and contracts as well as council agendas and minutes, and assisting mayor and council with legislative responsibilities.
Highlights in the budget for the coming year include the beginning of a project to prepare for a council election in 2018. That process is quite costly, Heinrich said, and the department has budgeted $20,000 per year for the next two years. That would include the cost of hiring an outside chief election officer by request for proposal, rather than running the election in-house.
“It is a lot of work, a lot of burden they take on to take that from the public, and council should prepare for considerable cost,” Allin said. “We are not sure if staff would take on that role or not. It is not a requirement and they do not have to. If you have someone else you are looking at 20,000 to have that election run by an outside body.”
Heinrich reported that this year’s byelection this year cost $12,000 to run, $4,000 more than the budgeted $8,000. Heinrich said that was largely due to the staff requirements for having personnel on site. Council discussed the implications should Councillor Colleen Ross be elected the MP in May, with Allin clarifying that she is not obligated to vacate her council seat should she be able to meet meeting requirements.
“We went as conservative [on the budget] as we were able, and … we are down,” Heinrich said.
In response to a question from Butler, Allin said he would currently advise council against making reductions in staff.
“At this point I would not advise reducing staff until we have realized some goals and realized more potential to be able to replace capital assets,” Allin said. the city last reduced staff by three positions last year.
Outside Public Works
Manager of Operations Dave Reid presenting the public works as well as the electrical utility and water utility budgets.
Reid noted that utility budget will be seeing small increases, but the allowable increase is governed by a different section of Asset Management Policy 808. Accordingly, utility rates will rise no more than three to four per cent. The operations budget will rise in accordance will policy 808, not more than two per cent pus the rate of inflation.
The water and waste water utilities will rise 2.9 per cent, while the electrical utility is budgeted to rise 2.7 per cent.
According to Allin, the next workshop on Tuesday will have a breakdown of each project and expense so that council may decide what to pull from the budget, should they choose.
The next budget workshop will be on Feb. 14 at 1 p.m. following the 9 a.m. Committee of the Whole and preceding the 7 p.m. regular council meeting.
