When council passed its capital budget in principal in December, it decided to put off its look at the five-year capital plan.
At a special meeting on April 25, financial analyst Larry Wheeler presented an updated plan.
Wheeler pointed out two numbers in the $21.6-million five-year plan. The first was $4.5 million of property tax required over plan.
“That’s $900,000 a year, that is right on target,” he said.
The other number was $12 million in debt required. Wheeler said that “is not a doable figure.”
Mayor Allan Alls agreed, saying, “Obviously $12 million in debt is not sustainable in this community at this stage of the game.”
There was a consensus from councillors not to go through the plan line by line.
“It’s pretty difficult to go through this and say you need this and no we don’t need that, because we, or at least I don’t, have the expertise to make those decisions,” said councillor John Brennan.
He suggested department heads would know best of where savings could come from.
Councillor Matt Sammut said the town has to start looking at the efficiencies and he wants council to decide together on a directive to cut the budget.
“Going line by line does nothing, it’s an absolute ridiculous process,” said Sammut.
“We need to say ‘we need to cut this plan by 20 per cent, and department heads, do what you can.’ Cutting is the most difficult thing to do but in something that’s failing, you have no choice but to do it.”
Sammut added the town won’t be saved by “monster growth” and growth may still be years away.
“We’ve got to start making these hard decisions and we need a CAO to lead it,” he added.
Alls moved to form a committee consisting of a councillor, the CAO, the treasurer, department heads, and himself to go through the five-year plan and “pull it apart piece by piece.”
Brennan suggested the department heads come up with their department priorities for the first meeting. Sammut asked council to decide their directive, but councillor Rob Smith suggested to wait until after the first meeting to see what cutting the budget would look like.
“I think how we can do that is the committee could say ‘okay if we cut the x-number per cent, here’s what services are going to be,’” said Alls.
The total plan equates to $21.6 million in capital projects. Some of the highlights include:
– $838,900 in general government capital projects including a $250,000 office renovation project in 2016 and 2017;
– $1.7 million for the fire department, including replacing two trucks at $460,000 each over three years;
– $15.3 million for the roads department, with projects including the replacement of three snowplows at $285,000 each in 2018, 2019 and 2020, Church Street reconstruction at $290,000 in 2017, $1.1 million for reconstruction of Daniel Street in 2019, $1.3 million to reconstruct the 8th Line in 2020 and $2.4 million for the Station Street rehabilitation in 2017;
– $3.1 million for the water department, with the biggest project being the Daniel Street watermain at almost $1 million, as well as two new production wells forecasted for 2021 at a cost of around $2.3 to 2.5 million each;
– $2.7 million in smaller capital projects for the recreation department; and
– $1.9 million in economic development, including a total of $780,000 for the Erin Rotary River Walk and $210,00 for the development of the Equine Trail Hub in 2018.
