Drumheller Town council gave the residents of the community the opportunity to discuss with residents about the proposed capital and operational budgets on Monday, March 12, at the Badlands Community Facility (BCF).
Council hopes this feedback will help them understand and solidify what the people want to see while also giving chances for their thoughts to be heard.
“We are trying to be as transparent as possible with the public about giving them a man on the street and every man’s view of how the multi-million dollar corporation that is the Town of Drumheller, operates on an annual basis,” said Councillor Jay Garbutt. “So we’ve managed to break out how both the capital and operating budgets are going to work for 2018 and then hopefully give people a chance to come and ask questions they have about why we spend the resources we have through taxes.”
Residents will be seeing a 3 per cent increase in taxes due to unforeseen costs for the operational budget. One of the things the town has been aware of has been increased wages for employees directly under the town's umbrella of employment.
“I think generally people understand that if they worked for us and they did a good job they would expect that their wages would go up by at least the cost of living increase every year and so every year that means we are going to be spending a little more money on operating because certainly paying the people we have to do certain jobs that they do is a large portion of our operating budget,” explained Garbutt.
This open house is a new opportunity followed through by this freshly elected council.
“When it comes to the operating budget we tend to get feedback a little after the fact,” said Garbutt. “We were trying to get some more feedback before the budget has been passed so that is a real change in one of the ways we’ve been doing things around here and I think that is an important change. I think it is important to engage with people before the budget is passed which is really the point of doing this [open house].”
The 3 per cent increase can be split nearly three ways; One per cent will go towards the RCMP, another towards the increase in the provincial carbon tax, and one per cent in wages.
“A single point of the property tax increase is entirely attributable this year to a dramatic increase in our expenses for the RCMP that is actually being hoisted on them in new training and equipment requirements that they didn’t see coming and we certainly didn’t see coming,” said Garbutt.
The capital budget this year includes flood mitigation projects as one of the highest costing priorities which will be funded through grants, borrowing, and reserves.
“That’s a long overdue movement of some dirt to improve the safety of this community from high water events,” said Garbutt. “We’ve had a number of outstanding issues with the Province of Alberta and we are finally coming to see the end of those conflicts and hoping to move forward.