A budget proposed by the city's administration would see St. Albert homeowners pay 2.9 per cent more in property taxes, 9.5 per cent more for utilities and three per cent more in user fees, all with the goal of maintaining existing service standards with few enhancements.
Council officially received the 2012-14 operating and capital budgets Monday night. While councillors have had their two budget binders for approximately a month, the presentation by administration was the first public viewing of the proposed budget.
"We've taken a conservative approach to this budget," said acting city manager Chris Jardine. "It's proposing modest improvements. Looking forward, it will be challenging to continue delivering a full suite of services given modest growth and pressures."
St. Albert's total balanced budget equals approximately $120 million in revenues and expenses for 2012 — a 4.8 per cent increase over 2011. The city's main source of revenue will still be property taxes, which will account for approximately 65 per cent of all income.
"Only 10.8 per cent of the tax base is non-residential. Because of this, the city relies heavily on residential taxes," said acting chief financial officer Gene Peskens. "Eighty-three per cent of tax revenue generated is municipal tax. This is one of the highest percentages in the province."
Yet despite its size and growth rate, estimated at 1.4 per cent, St. Albert still has one of the lowest rates of employees per 1,000 population provincially at 8.93, as well as one of the lowest debt-per-capita ratios amongst its comparator communities, at $1,100 per capita.
The so-called "magic number" or total required to increase or decrease the proposed tax increase by one percentage point is $742,000.
Business cases
In total, the operational budget contains 30 proposed, funded business cases, which the city defines as "an initiative or adjustment that is required to maintain services or provide new services."
The proposed cases would bring about the hiring of seven full-time equivalents (FTEs) at a cost of $655,000. Left unfunded are 29 proposals containing 13.38 FTEs for a total cost of $2.3 million. Approving every single business case, according to Peskens, would have required an additional tax increase of 3.2 per cent on top of the proposed 2.9 per cent.
Some of the business cases include the RCMP's crime analyst, which was previously funded by a government grant. The position has proven so critical to the local detachment that administration feels it's in the city's best interests to keep it and must subsequently absorb the funding for it, Jardine said.
The biggest capital budget expenditures for the coming year will be the third and fourth stages of remediating Riel Park ($9 million), expanding Ray Gibbon Drive to Villeneuve Road ($17.2 million) and building the south transit centre/park and ride ($34.8 million) which is contingent on receiving provincial GreenTRIP funding.
Continuing with its 100-year utility model, administration is also proposing a 9.5 per cent increases for all utilities.
That means, in total, the owner of a home with an assessed value of $400,000 will pay $7.07 more per month in property taxes ($85 more annually), as well as $9.46 more per month for utilities.
Extra expenditures will include expanding transit to Erin Ridge North. When asked by council, given the volatility of the economic markets in Europe and the United States, how "recession-proof" the budget was, Jardine offered a grim answer.
"This is a budget very much built on delivery of services. If we need to reduce investment, it would need to be a dialogue with council on which services we should scale back or delay," Jardine said. "This is a very lean budget and for us to cut anything further than this means cutting into services."
Council will begin debating the budget as committee of the whole on Nov. 8. A town hall will be held at Sir George Simpson school on Monday Nov. 7 at 6:30 p.m.
