The NDP government announced their long awaited provincial budget on October 27, and it includes a few positives for Drumheller, says the Mayor.
Mayor Yemen said his biggest concern is flood mitigation and what funding will be available for Drumheller. The NDP government has said its capital plan (2015-2020) will include $926 million for flood recovery and mitigation programs over the next five years. The Town currently has multiple flood mitigation applications submitted and are waiting for approval. “Concerning is the amount of money that has been set aside for flood mitigation,” Yemen said.
“That’s the big thing here. We have been waiting. This is 2016 we are looking at now, we started this process, really hard and rekindled it again after the 2005 flood and we really haven’t had any funding for mitigation. It goes right back to 1985, when the town and the province sat down and developed a plan for flood mitigation in the Valley. We were moving forward with it and then it just got pushed to the side by the province,” he said.
“For the amount of money that they are talking about and the amount of work that needs to be done in Calgary and High River I am just concerned about what is going to be left. It seems like once they get whatever they need, the rest will be (divided) up. It is not just Drumheller. We’ve got Red Deer, Sundre, Medicine Hat, it all has to come out of that pot of money. It is concerning. I don’t know if there is enough money there to get the work done that we need to get done,” he told The Mail.
The NDP’s have also eliminated the Grant in Lieu of Taxes (GILT) on government owned and supported social housing. This will include municipal taxes assessed against the properties which are managed by Drumheller Housing Administration and the Drumheller and District Seniors Foundation which have been supported through this program.
Although, the GILT which will be a loss of $62,500, won’t effect Drumheller right now because of an expected operational surplus, moving forward the revenue that will no longer be recognized through GILT will need to be collected from Drumheller ratepayers through an increase to the mill rate or a decrease in services.
The education tax will be increasing provincially by 5.9 per cent, which Yemen said, will be like a sticker shock to some.
“It’s not a municipal thing but it shows up on our tax report. When people see it, there may be a little bit of sticker shock and think it is all the town, but again you have to read the line items where it says school, seniors homes, and then your residence,” Yemen stated.
It is expected there will be an increase of 4.6 per cent to the residential allocation portion and a 7.9 per cent increase to the non-residential allocation portion of the annual education tax requisition.
Other items that will effect Drumheller will include the traffic fine fee expense and revenue increase. Fine revenue generated within the boundaries of the Town is collected by the province and distributed back to the municipality after the administration fee is collected. Currently the fee is 16.67 per cent but the fee will be increased to 26.67 per cent. This will result in the average traffic ticket increasing by 35 per cent which will offset the increased administration fee. For the 2015 budget a provision of $120,000 in fine revenue was included.
The MSI operating budget will remain the same and the MSI capital will see a slight increase. The BMTG grants saw a slight increase of $6.1 million provincially.
The NDP budget also included an increase of $25 million provincially for the Family Community Support Services. The public library funding will increase by $0.10 per capita. The policing grant and new police officer program will remain in place and will see a slight increase to the policing grant which will reflect provincial population growth.
