The Town of Drumheller council achieved another milestone for the Drumheller Resiliency and Flood Mitigation Program, by adopting the year 2020 budget of the $55 million six-year program budget at a council meeting held Monday, January 27th.
Mayor Colberg states “I am pleased to see the budget approved as this allows the program to move ahead and finalize the funding agreements with our partners.”
The 2020 budget shows revenues of $28 million, with $8 million coming from the federal DMAF Program and $20 million from the provincial Flood Mitigation Program, and expenses of $19,185,893.
This will guide subsequent budgets in future years.
The Drumheller Resiliency and Flood Mitigation Office will be providing an update to council in May as per its regular reporting strategy with funding partners.
Before the motion to approve the six year budget, councillor Jay Garbutt made a motion to table the decision. With a tie vote, the motion was defeated.
“I had hoped to ‘press the pause button’ on the process for some additional time to review the information and form additional questions regarding some elements of the project’s budget,” he said. “We’re having no fewer than three meetings about the entire 2020 operating budget for the Town at $15 million, but only one discussion now about a $55 million project budget with a $20 million 2020 spend planned? That doesn’t make sense to me.”
“Overall, I am in complete support of the project and the team appointed to operate it, but the pace of decision making for matters of this magnitude is alarming. I believe Council has a responsibility to be more deliberate than that. When my motion to table the budget for one week failed to pass I felt I had no choice but to vote against the entire package, in hopes to slow the process. The majority of Council obviously disagreed.”
While the initial vote on the budget was defeated, a second motion was made by Councillor Tom Zariski, to approve the budget for 2020, with the provision that it be brought back on May 25 for review.
