PENHOLD – It would seem that most municipalities in Alberta are tightening the purse strings following the UCP’s first provincial budget this fall.
The Town of Penhold is one of them.
“Ultimately our goal heading in was zero increase budget,” said Mike Yargeau, Penhold mayor, of his town's current 2020 budget process. “We’ve put ourselves in a really good position over the last number of years by keeping up to date on any infrastructure projects or any major capital costs that we are going to have.
“As of now we have zero increase budget. We’re looking at no increases for residents,” said Yargeau, who is expecting the final budget to be passed at the Dec. 9 council meeting. “(We’re) just basically keeping everything as tight as it can be.”
That includes eliminating the cost of living increases for council and staff this year, he said.
Yargeau also noted a substantial cut to Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) funding, with about 25 per cent less than they had received the year before.
“We’ve received less MSI funding so we’re doing less capital projects because of (that),” he said. “We do expect to receive less than what we had been getting under MSI, under the new formula.”
Yargeau said they are holding the line this year with no need for any major projects, aside from a little roadwork.
“The goal is we want our residents to see little to no impact,” said Yargeau. “You’re not going to see an increase in services that they’re getting now, but we’re not going to be decreasing the services at the same time.
“At the end of the day they’re going to be paying the same as they paid last year for the most part,” explained Yargeau, noting no tax increases at the moment are planned.
One thing council did plan for during the budget meeting on Nov. 26 was the anticipated school requisition.
“We budgeted no increases, assuming that we’re going to see a slight increase on our school requisition because we haven’t been told yet what that’s going to be,” said Yargeau. “We looked back at our typical increases over the last five years and budgeted for, I think, a four per cent increase on average.
“That’s included in there. We’re trying to cover our bases here,” he added.
Yargeau said there is another provincial budget expected in the spring.
“It shouldn’t affect us negatively anyway. Obviously, we’re budgeting based on the amount of money we have now,” said Yargeau. “So if there’s some increase in provincial funding, maybe you might see us do a few more projects.”
