Mountain View County council has approved the writeoff of $13,210.92 in unpaid taxes and penalties on 11 oilfield tax rolls. The move came by way of motion at the recent regularly scheduled council meeting.
“The accounts held by Camino Industries Inc., Neo Exploration Inc., and Terra Energy Corp all have accounts listed with the Orphan Well Association and are categorized as defunct companies in addition to being either insolvent or bankrupt,” director of corporate services Rob Beaupertuis said in a briefing note to council.
The uncollectable accounts have no remaining avenues of collection, he said.
“The preceding outstanding tax balances for all three companies were written off by Council on January 24, 2018. If written off, all eleven rolls would be eligible to apply for the Provincial Education Requisition Credit (PERC) program,” he said.
As far as the budget implication of the writeoff, he said, “The doubtful accounts are recognized in the allowance for bad debt. By writing off these tax accounts the bad debt expense would be realized and the allowance for doubtful accounts and taxes receivable would be reduced by the same amount, $13,210.82.
“An application could then be made for the Provincial Education Requisition Credit for the education portion of the listed oilfield bad debt rolls which totals $2,793.08.”
Councillors passed a motion approving the write-off. Coun. Al Kemmere, who did not attend the Nov. 28 council meeting, sent a note to council saying he was also in favour of the writeoff.
Highway motions
Meanwhile, council passed a motion directing administration to inform Volker Stevin and Alberta Highway Services that the county is not interested in continuing to lease heated shop space to them beyond the existing contracts.
Councillors passed a second motion directing administration to inform Volker Stevin and Alberta Highway Services that the county is interested in continuing to lease them storage for winter sand and salt.
Both motions were also passed during the recent regularly scheduled council meeting.
“Alberta Transportation is currently accepting proposals from highway maintenance providers on their new Contract Maintenance Areas (CMA),” administration said in a briefing note to council.
The proposed CMA for the district would have Mountain View County and Clearwater County as one maintenance area.
“Since the release of this proposal, operational service has met with some of the contractors looking to bid these contracts. These companies are looking to see if the county is interested in continuing to lease out heated shop storage and access to salt/sand storage facilities.
“At this time, operational services has indicated to these companies that the county would not be interested in leasing heated shop space but would be interested in leasing sand salt facilities, however, final direction would come from council.”
Operational services recommended retaining shop and office space for the county’s use to house winter maintenance equipment and staff.
“In the Olds and Cremona quadrants, adequate shop space is an issue. However with the agricultural services' new facility and the east side shop, space in Didsbury is no longer as big of an issue. The Sundre shop is currently at capacity with our equipment and highway maintenance equipment.”
Operational services recommended that the county continue to lease out the sand and salt facilities in Cremona, Olds, Didsbury and Sundre.
“These facilities were constructed to be shared with the highway maintenance contractors. The storage capacity in these facilities is far greater than what the county currently requires.
“If we did not lease these out the contractors would have to construct new facilities, and less sand and salt facilities in the county is better for the environment.”
