Isabel Mosseler
Tribune
After four long meetings spanning about 12 hours from November 25 to December 9, West Nipissing Council finalized its 2025 budget that will see a property tax increase of 4.6%. CAO Jay Barbeau gave a rough estimate that in real terms, an average home valued at $350K would see an increase in the range of $80 for the year. Staff indicated they would come back with a more accurate figure per $100K of house value. Water and Wastewater, and Waste Disposal budget increases remain to be determined.
Staff presented their initial projections at the first meeting on November 25, showing a shortfall from the previous year of $1,377,484, and asking for an increase of 6.52% to cover 2025 operations. The Executive Summary noted that a one percent increase represents $211,395 in revenue for the town. Consequently, the actual increase approved by December 9 at 4.6% represents $972,417 in budget expenditures for 2025.
During the first two nights of deliberations, CAO Barbeau and Director of Corporate Affairs Alisa Craddock mainly presented projected Operating and Capital expenditures. Determining the budget in the latter part of 2024 for the year 2025 is a relatively new move so that staff can advance the 2025 tendering process earlier in the season, to take advantage of any cost savings. “This is the second year that we start in the fall, or pre-August. Last year worked very well. We closed it, hopefully, a little bit sooner so that we can actually get to the capital tendering a little bit sooner. But even with that, we did very well last year in terms of what we normally do,” Barbeau noted, adding that this was his 25th budget for West Nipissing.
The working document handed to council showed the operating budget by department, reserves and debt, and 5-year comparables so council could see trends. Barbeau advised that some costs were not controllable by council, “Those are expenses that Council has no say in; they must accept, pretty much. Those are boards, such as the Police Board, DNSSAB (District of Nipissing Social Services Administration Board), Au Chateau, and the like. Also, some things that are uncontrollable are on the revenue side. We don’t have complete control over what the province of Ontario gives us.” He advised that historically, government funding has declined year over year, but in a bit of good news there was a sudden $650K increase, which helped to bring the budget forecast down to 6.52%.
Craddock gave highlights of the various municipal departments, cautioning that the final figures will not be in until the end of the year, and that her projections were conservative. She also pointed to some uncontrollable expenses that have gone up, from insurance to gas to heating. “So I’ve used a 7% estimate on insurance over 2024 actuals. We’ve seen some really hard increases in insurance the last three years (…) Our claims history is reasonable. Our risk mitigation is reasonable.” Increasing utility costs are hitting all departments, even with savings from transitioning to LEDs. “We’ve now caught up, and so this is a year-over-year increase on our utility costs,” projected at $78,570 higher over all departments.
Craddock also noted increases to board and council expenses related primarily to training, education and attendant travel costs, something which had been neglected during the COVID years. Most departments asked for increases for education. Discretionary funds saved and put in reserve during those years for such things as the annual Seniors’ Supper and some other community projects are generally now depleted or have been transferred to the general budget.
In terms of revenues, Craddock noted increased success in collecting tax arrears but some of the tax sales have been unsuccessful. “Tax sales is kind of our ultimate collection tool for our receivables. What we are finding is that we get folks to year two, and then they get a little scared and actually do come good at the end of year two.” She also noted that when residents are six months overdue on their water bill, the amount is transferred to their taxes.
Administration requested a transfer to reserves of $245K, up $10K, “to keep moving our transfer to reserve for IT and technology up. There’s a lot of work to come (…) in the not-too-distant future, so we keep moving that line up,” said Craddock. The reserve allows year-over-year build-up of cash for capital expenditures that don’t come up every year but can otherwise cause a big budget hike if the cost were not spread over several years.
Public Works is projecting a surplus of $515K. Craddock explained, “Our aggregate revenue has been strong for the last few years (… from a) licensing fee that we receive from the pits that are in our area (…) The province shares back a portion of it with the municipalities where aggregate pits are located (…) Additionally (…) when someone who needs to put a new entrance in because they’re opening up a lot, or they’re doing a building, and they install a culvert to come in, there’s a portion of that that we retain for all of our inspection, our time .” Public Works has asked for a new full time position, to be shared with Water & Sewer. “Public Works and Water and Sewer do share a lot of costs that way because of how closely they’re interrelated with our distribution and collection portion of things.” That person would be dedicated to contract management.
Both Public Works and Fire Services are facing difficult times in fleet and equipment expenses, including new vehicles/equipment and shop repair expenses. “It just is a really difficult, difficult spot with fleet maintenance right now.”
Community Services shows a net deficit of $300,755. Craddock said, “When you’re looking at the last several years (…), they were the department that was most significantly impacted by COVID.” Grants were received to offset lost revenues in fees, there were layoffs and facility shutdowns, all of which have skewed historical comparisons. The department asked for additional staffing and training. There are also increased maintenance costs to areas that fall under Community Services, such as snow removal at the Ambulance Bay, the Community Health Centre, and facility maintenance. “Community services is a bit more hydro heavy, both with the arenas and with the fact that they have all the facilities; we’re just seeing that bigger increase on things,” said Craddock. Equipment costs also have considerable impact. “The transfer to reserve ($1.13M), that’s the line that you need to look at as far as impact on taxes (…) Their transfer to reserve funds fleet, facilities and equipment.” Funds go into reserve each year to stabilize expenses in response to the infrastructure deficit.
There were not many changes in the operating budget of Planning and Building, with a net deficit of $3,900. “One of the things we’ve seen for a couple of years is that we were funding the official plan review and the bylaw review, so that is expected to wrap into 2025.”
Economic Development is seeing a substantial increase of $147K to $569.9K, related primarily to the development of the former Weyerhaeuser lands and possible site remediation, and a proposed increase of $100K for the doctor recruitment program associated with the West Nipissing General Hospital.
Fire Services is facing some challenges with upcoming capital expenditures. In operations, the West Nipissing Fire Service shows a surplus of $42,755, mostly from the province in response to highway accidents. Their main budget increases are in education. During COVID, the institution that trains fire service personnel was closed. “We’re seeing an increase in our training (…), increase in the cost of education (…), costs of traveling and transportation (…), fleet repairs and maintenance (…) general equipment repairs and maintenance,” Craddock noted. “The fire department, they must do annual testing on the compressors, the ladders, the pumps (…) We haven’t seen increases in those lines for a lot of years, we’ve actually been able to pull back those lines a couple times in the past, and we’re just now seeing the reverse (…) This year was just that year that costs just escalated, and like Public Works, some of it is just straight getting safeties done on vehicles. It’s not necessarily large breakdowns, it’s just that routine work.”
Craddock continued, “The only reason that we’re not sort of seeing some increase here is that we’re actually two years behind, there’s two years of fleet that council has approved, and we haven’t been able to acquire the vehicles, so (…) we’ve kind of held the line, but we do have this position that we know we are going to run into problems with fire fleet. (…) In the past, we were fortunate, we could find second hand demos, we brought a lot of fleet out of the States (…). And there have been some difficulties in converting the US equipment to Canadian equipment, so it’s not always the best strategy for everything (and) the cost of these heavy vehicles has just escalated so much.” This year is okay, said Craddock, but trouble is coming down the pipe.
Bylaw Enforcement HR costs have gone up $41,500, for education, training and salaries. “With salaries and wages, this year is one and a half FTEs for the full year”, up from one. Revenues of roughly $12,000 from municipal ticketing has “really been up and down over the years depending on our stability of the workforce (…) It’s not a cost recovery situation with by-law (…) One of the big things that by-law deals with is property standards. So in addition to the municipal law enforcement courses and certification, there is actually a property standards [course] that we’d like to take both our officers through,” Craddock explained.
Costs for local boards have increased by $22K, Police Board by $500, Cemetery Board by $10,000 and Library Board by almost $12,000. There was some question as to the Library Board reserves, and a general request that the Library Board present to council. In reference to the Cemetery Board, they are installing two columbariums with niches, which raised questions about cost recovery. Revenues from sales have been going into General Reserve.
