Suffice to say in the age of COVID-19 it has been an interesting year in Kneehill County.
Reeve Jerry Wittstock took a moment to chat with the Mail on the past year, and the coming year. Of course, COVID-19 dominated the headlines, and in Kneehill County, this was also the case. Being a rural municipality, the effect might have not been as dire as in more populated communities.
“We’ve never had one of these years before,” said Wittstock. “I think because we are in the rural area we are actually lucky, we’re not congested and in a position where you can’t leave the house without having a mask on. You can feed your cows without a mask.”
Despite the threat of COVID-19, the county was busy with its day to day operations.
“We still got stuff done. We are happy we managed to get our Churchill Water rehab completed. We also did some work on roads, and just the way the economy was I think we probably ended up saving a little bit of money on it,” he said.
The County also continued its capital support for the rural fire department with the purchase of new apparatus.
“We planned on that years ago; our capital replacement was the four fire truck replacements. As much as we didn’t expect to pay $2 million for the four of these 20 years ago, but that’s what it ended up costing. That being said, those are the regulations on those trucks, they are only allowed to survive for 20 years.”
One challenge Kneehill County faced, along with many other rural communities was the assessment review.
Counties faced a proposal by the province that would reduce property taxes for some oil and gas companies through changes to the way their assessment is conducted. Under the initial proposal, Kneehill could stand to lose between $3.5 to $7 million a year. With sustained pressure from municipalities, the province did back away some.
“It was quite a challenge…we ended up losing some revenue on that side, but we didn’t lose as much as was forecasted. Our partners within the towns and villages supported us by writing letters to the provincial government. Our ratepayers supported us by writing letters and emails to our provincial legislators. Without that support, I think the province would have just gone ahead and done what they were looking to do,” said Wittstock.
“Everybody has to be part of this because if they are picking off municipalities, who is going to be next? The urbans? We are lucky they supported us, and we are definitely supporting them as much as we can.”
In response to the changes, Wittstock says Kneehill has tightened their budget, and are supporting their commitments. One item that has helped is the county has found its own source of gravel which will lead to long-term savings. Road maintenance is one of the county’s largest expenses.
“It took quite a bit of money to get that dug up in the Torrington area, but now it is there, we are looking at 15 years, possibly longer supply of gravel,” he said. “It is going to help our residents.”
Looking forward to 2021, he says they are not looking at many major projects but will be replacing a bridge in the Hesketh area that impedes large traffic.
“We manage to pull some funding out of the province for municipal stimulus funding,” he said. “We knew we were going to have to replace that infrastructure at some point, it was just fortunate we managed to get this funding.”
