Cuts in spending will keep Black Diamond’s operating costs on par with last year as the community faces uncertainty in the months ahead.
Black Diamond town council passed the 2020 operating and capital budgets with cuts to capital projects, contracted services, wages and contributions to reserve funds during a special meeting on March 30.
“The budget held the line of 2019 spending, even with the additional expenditures,” said chief administrative officer Sharlene Brown. “There was a hard look at what our expenditures needed to be. We’re doing our darndest to ensure that our spending from a municipal point of view is as low as it can possibly be so that it doesn’t impact their municipal tax rate.”
In a split vote last fall, council sets its 2020 operational spending guidelines at a 1.5 per cent increase over 2019, with a 1.75 per cent increase for wages. At the time, Brown had told council that the Town was facing a two per cent average projected increase in expenses for 2020.
Brown said that in light of the current economic situation, administration had since worked to reduce the Town's operating costs.
This included staff wages.
“There’s been some changes in our staffing requirements that’s been reflected in the budget,” she said. “We’ve got some people that are working part time instead of full time now.”
In addition, some positions are experiencing a wage increase – mostly permanent full-time employees - while others are not, she said.
“The Town of Black Diamond is not on par with a lot of other municipalities as far as staff wages go - we’re significantly lower than what other municipalities pay for those positions,” said Brown. “Council was interested in moving those wages up, but just considering the economic climate we’re in right now some of those pieces need to be put on hold. As a municipality we have to understand that there is only so many dollars to go around.”
Cuts were also made in how much the Town will contribute to its reserve funds, Brown said.
“Every year we try to put so much into reserves to assist in capital replacement of assets, whether it’s trucks or equipment or infrastructure, but we reduced those,” she said. “Most departments took a hit on their reserve funds. We split it as evenly as possible.”
As for service delivery, Brown said the Town is limiting its contracted services.
“Just to keep the expenses down as far as we can while attempting to ensure that we still have adequate service levels, we will try to do as much internally as possible,” she said. “We will still contract out, we’re just going to limit as much as we can to make sure we meet the needs of today’s economic climate.”
Council unanimously approved the $3,265,306 operating budget, with an anticipated revenue from other sources totaling $339,500. This leaves $2,925,806 to be covered by the tax base – a 0.08 per cent decrease from last year, Brown said.
She said once the Town receives the provincial requisitions - expected later this spring – it will establish the 2020 tax rate.
“We can’t do anything about the tax rate until the assessment process is completed,” she said. “Once we have the assessment process completed then we will work on tax rates.”
Black Diamond’s operating budget increased by one per cent in 2018 and saw no increase in 2017.
Council also passed its capital budget of just over $4 million, which Brown said will come from grants and reserve funds with zero borrowing.
High on the priority list is a water looping project that will increase pressure and flow in the southeast portion of Black Diamond, which Brown said will meet the Fire Underwriters Survey recommendations. Construction is expected to begin this year.
Other capital projects for 2020 include renovation work to the municipal office front stairs, a park and ride parking lot at the northwest side of town and a storm water management plan, Brown said.
She said all other projects have been put on hold including infrastructure asset replacement in town, Oilfields Regional Arena refrigeration replacement and pathway expansion.
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