City council got a look at a proposed $228.4-million plan to maintain, repair or replace municipal capital assets for the next 10 years.
Council’s standing committee on finance was presented with two 10-year capital plans on Monday. The first is for municipal capital, with $17.7-million worth of projects planned in 2016, and a total of $228.4-million in projects proposed for 2016-2025.
The second is a proposed $163-million 10-year capital plan to maintain, repair and replace the city’s utility system.
While council is months away from officially approving the budget for 2016, the city traditionally starts looking at maintenance capital planning in the spring.
The repair, maintain and replace capital budget includes items like asphalt overlay, replacement transit buses or software updates.
Capital plans relating to the growing needs of St. Albert will be proposed and debated in the fall, during the regular budget deliberations.
Council was pleased with the in-depth nature of the capital plan packages they were presented with.
"This is the best I have felt on these packages that has ever come forward in my time," said Mayor Nolan Crouse. "I just felt good about the level of detail, the level of accuracy, and I think we're in good shape.”
Both the municipal and utility capital plan did go up in costs over the version of the plan approved during the 2015 budget, with some specific estimates for the increases in 2016.
The report says the municipal capital plan for 2016 went up in part because of cost inflation and more concise cost estimates, but new projects have been added as well. The difference is about $1.6-million.
The utility capital plan for 2016 went up for similar reasons, with an increase of $2.4-million.
While the utility capital plan would have an impact on the new supplementary capital fee that’s being charged on utility bills, the municipal capital projects aren’t paid out of the city’s tax revenue.
Council had questions on several topics, including questioning the categorization of some projects as probable growth projects instead of repair or maintenance items.
For example, Coun. Tim Osborne wanted to know about any projects associated with upgrades triggered by the Safe Journeys to School report.
City manager Patrick Draper said these budgets would cover replacing a sidewalk, but improving it would be classified as growth.
Crouse disagreed with the categorization of the repair and replacement of the airplane that was perched outside the legion on Taché Street until it had to be removed being categorized as growth.
Council members were asked to submit any proposed amendments to staff by April 25 for discussion and debate at the next standing committee on finance meeting in May.
