County of Barrhead property owners can expect a small increase in the tax rate.
That is assuming councillors approve the 2019 draft budget that was introduced at the annual County of Barrhead open house April 10 at Glenreagh Community Hall which included a 0.5 per cent increase.
On the operation side, the draft budget includes expenditures of $16,425,195, with the largest portion going towards providing transportation infrastructure and maintenance at $7,393,375.
The next largest category is requisitions or funds the county collects on behalf of the province for education or seniors social housing at $2,640,331, followed by general services and administration at $2,257,937, environmental and development services (agricultural services, land use and planning, economic development and subdivision) at $1,434,420, recreational and cultural services at $876,227, environmental use (water, sewer, landfill and transfer stations) and protection services (bylaw) at $652,115.
Director of finance and administration Tamara Molzahn broke it down further by the function of government stating salary and benefits account for 29 per cent of the operational budget, followed by the purchase of goods at 18 per cent.
“The bulk of [goods] are things like gravel, oil, dust control, the cost to operate that equipment, but also includes things like paper, pens and computers,” she said.
The next largest expenditure by function was contribution to reserves and other governments at 14 and nine per cent.
Molzhan noted the contributions to other government referred to payments made to the Town of Barrhead for joint services such as fire protection and the landfill as well as water it purchases from the Barrhead Regional Water Commission.
She also highlighted the allowances and provisions category which increased to six per cent from 0.5 per cent.
“This area has seen a significant increase over last year due to the difficulties collecting taxes from the oil and gas industry,” Molzhan said.
On the revenue side, the county projects, they will collect a total of $16,4425,249, with the majority coming from property taxes at $8,801,013.
The next largest portion of revenue, Molzhan said, is the amount they are required to collect by the province for education at $2,519,457. The county also collects a requisition for the Barrhead and District Social Housing Association earmarked for 2019 at $106,815.
The next two largest sources of revenue are the sale of goods and services, followed by user fees and government grants, pegged at $1,310,347 and $1,112,828 respectively.
“We are also drawing a little more than a million [$1,059,038] $800,000 will be to cover the allowance for uncollected taxes from the oil and gas industry,” she said.
Molzhan explained taxes are levied based on taxable property assessment. In 2019, that is projected at $949,6787,690, with the majority of it coming from residential properties ($677,991,010), farmland ($61,034,740) and non-residential ($42,620,490).
The remainder of the taxable assessment comes from linear assessment broken into pipes and power at $130,714,230 and machinery and equipment at $37,318,220.
“It was just under a one per cent increase overall with increases in residential and decreases in non-residential and pipe and power and machinery and equipment,” she said.
Health of municipality
Molzhan noted as part of the budget process Alberta Municipal Affairs determines the health of a municipality using 11 key performance indicators such as base balance, tax collection rate, population change to ratio spent on debt servicing and infrastructure age.
“If you hit three of these factors you are deemed to be at risk,” she said, noting in 2018 they triggered one of the risk factors by dropping below 90 per cent in the tax collection rate at 88.18 per cent. “And that had to do with the difficulties we had collecting from the oil and gas industry.”
2019 Capital Budget
The proposed capital budget for 2019 is pegged at $6,326,426 with the majority going to transportation services (roads, bridges, equipment and the airport) at $3,532,623. The next largest category is environmental use and protection (water, sewer, lagoons and waste collection) at $2,183,390.
Molzhan noted a large portion being for the lagoon improvements in Neerlandia.
