Happily married with no increase in mill rates.
For Wallace-Woodworth Municipality, amalgamation is under their belt, signified by the presentation of the 2015 budget on May 12.
They have climbed a monotonous mountain of paperwork and housekeeping resolutions, renaming by-laws; reclassifying accounting items and categorizing expenses.
This had to be accomplished quickly this past January, as soon as the elected council was sworn in, to enable the Chief Administrative Offi cer to issue cheques to pay staff and do the
day to day bill paying, to keep services coming for ratepayers.
This they did, all with a fair amount of congeniality and cooperation. CAO Garth Mitchell (formerly CAO for Elkhorn) explains, “The people at the table have all come together
with the right mindset.” All in all, a line item of $150,000 has been allocated to pay for the municipal amalgamation of the previous R.M.s of Wallace, Woodworth, and Village of Elkhorn.
Mitchell holds out a small hope that the province will reimburse the R.M. for amalgamation expenses.
He credits Carol-Ann Brethor, (former CAO of Woodworth) and Ruth Mitchell as CFO, with “doing the grunt work”.
Satellite offi ces in Kenton and Elkhorn remain open and staffed. The main office, a new building built near Virden by the R.M. of Wallace, was just nicely completed in 2014, in time to
receive the newly amalgamated council and staff in 2015.
Financial Plan Hearing Reeve of Wallace-Woodworth, Denis Carter welcomed ratepayers. Councillors, Elkhorn LUD representatives, staff and the members of the Amalgamation
Committee introduced themselves.
CAO Garth Mitchell presented a $10 million balanced budget. Ratepayers, for the most part, need not be concerned that their taxes will be higher. Councillors, under the guidance
of Way-to-Go Consulting (municipal amalgamation consultant) instructed Mitchell, and Assistant CAO Brethour to
work out the details and avoid major changes.
“Our mandate from our council was...they didn’t want any increase. There shouldn’t be any large shift in taxation at all,” said Mitchell.
He explained the goal was to focus on amalgamation. They did just that.
The budget includes $1.15 million in oil revenue. Total transportation services (at large) are budgeted at just over $5 million. This includes about $650,000 for gravel and $825,000 for road reconstruction and upgrades compared to 2014 spending of $1.03 million on reconstruction from the main municipal water utility and these utilities would be expected to be financially
self-sustaining.
Larry Logan asked if there would have to be an overdraft before taxes are all paid. “That will depend upon our flood money, a little bit,” said Mitchell, referring to the
municipality's hope for disaster relief assistance.
Regarding the sewage treatment lagoon planned for construction near Kola, Adam Bajus, a former councillor of the R.M. of Wallace, pointed out that Wallace Council had put aside money for this.
He asked, “On page 14 it shows...the lagoon future project as completely being borrowed. I recall us having a $525,000 reserve for that fund....” Mitchell responded,
“The allocation for the reserve was made without knowing for sure what the surplus was... so until the 2014 audit is done there isn’t any money to put into that reserve. If everything goes perfectly and we get our flood money back... it will show a surplus.
“The safer bet was to show it as borrowing. It will be discussed in the 2016 plan.”
Bajus, “Are you holding all our reserves?”
Mitchell responded, “All of the allocations that weren’t budgeted for, that were just done out of an anticipated surplus? Yes.”
One disgruntled ratepayer showed up late, which he attributed to the roads he had to travel to get from the western edge of the municipality, to Virden.
Mark Humphries pointed out that the budget for roads has proved to be inadequate for the past three years
Taxation for education for Fort La Bosse and Park West school divisions will be $3,897,400. Going forward CAO Mitchell recommends the R.M. devise a 15-year plan to avoid spikes
and valleys in taxation.
Questions
The public in attendance were, as Reeve Denis Carter noted, mostly made up of former councillors.
In the question period, in answer to Vince Heaman, Mitchell explained that oil companies would build any roads they required, themselves. The water utility of Kenton would continue
to be accounted for separately.
“Do you think that’s enough?” Carter responded, “When you make a budget, you make your best guess at it. I guess, at the end of the year, you find out if you’re right or not.”
Humphries responded, “The roads are completely and utterly shot. My question is, how are you encouraging local businesses to stay in business?” He went on to list the difficulty his staff
of 23 people, and his greenhouse and petting zoo customers have in getting in and out of Westwood Ranch Garden Centre.
Calling the gravel roads, a ‘moonscape’, he invited the reeve to come and drive his roads.
When no further explanation of the transportation budget was offered, the Elkhorn area businessman questioned,
“So, is this not the [meeting] where you decide if the financial budget is going to be set...you’re not going to debate it, then?” The reeve acknowledged Humphries opinion.
When asked if he had another question, Humphries replied flatly, “No, I’m speechless.” Reeve Carter invited the ratepayer to bring the issue to the next Council meeting.
Before the meeting dispersed, Keith Wadham stood to his feet and thanked the Councillors, amalgamation committee, the CAOs and staff for the good work they had done for the new municipality.
In a brief interview following the information meeting Reeve Carter indicated he was happy with the budget presented and eager to work within this budget, hoping for a ‘normal’ year. “We’ve been debating it for a month now. This meeting is to talk about the big picture, the plan.”
He conceded that something needs to be done for the roads. “There really needs to be hard tack roads all he way to Cromer.”
With under a dozen ratepayers on hand for the immense municipality that Wallace- Woodworth has become, the Reeve stated, “This is a poor crowd. We could have done much better.”
On the bright side, Carter pointed out that amalgamation has been accomplished very smoothly.
“Staffing levels will stay the same. The number of graders... all the services will be done. We did not lose one person in administration.” He summed up saying, “There will be some savings in
general government and administration.”
A clear, but detailed Financial Plan document is available at the R.M. office, for ratepayers to peruse.
