Okotoks council is putting some money in the Town’s piggy bank after its budget year ended with a healthy surplus.
The Town ended the year with an $874,423 operating surplus thanks to improved efficiencies, a rebounding economy and unexpected savings in some areas.
Councillors decided at its regular meeting on March 14 to put it all into the Town’s reserve funds.
Mayor Bill Robertson said it was the right move to save the money in reserves, especially for future maintenance and upgrades to Town facilities.
“If you don’t budget for that, you’re behind the eight ball if something major happens,” he said.
The funds will be distributed to a variety of reserve funds, including putting $470,000 in the recreation facilities reserve, $170,000 in the recapitalization fund, $90,000 in the snow removal reserve and $60,000 in the Foothills Community Centre contingency fund.
The surplus covers a great deal of the money withdrawn from reserve funds in 2010 to help keep the tax increase down. The Town dipped into its reserves for the 2010 budget, pulling just over $1 million to help keep the tax increase down last year.
The surplus amounts to about 2.5 per cent of the 2010 operating budget.
Robertson said it’s difficult to look back and say taxes could have been lower last year in light of the surplus because it could not have been foreseen when council approved the budget.
“Part of the surplus comes from areas where we were going to spend the money and for whatever reason it didn’t come through, such as staffing,” he said.
Robertson said the Town can’t put itself in a position where it could end up in a deficit. Under provincial law, municipalities cannot post a deficit.
The surplus is due to savings and efficiencies achieved over the year, including savings in employee benefits, unfilled positions, lower advertising expenses and changing to a new cell phone provider.
Okotoks’ financial services manager Louise Wasylenko said some savings were unexpected, while in other cases members of administration sought out ways to save money in certain areas over the course of the year.
“Things like the phone (contract), they went out consciously and looked for a different provider of cell phone service with the expectation of reducing the costs,” she said.
