Despite the highest inflation in decades, Altona Mayor Harv Schroeder says town Council and administration worked together to create a fiscally responsible plan for the year ahead.
Council has approved a $10.58 million budget for 2023/24, representing a 2.89% increase in spending over 2022.
"The overall budget increase is quite a bit lower than inflation. That's due to a relatively modest capital spending plan for 2023. As well, the surplus that was able to be allocated to reserves last year, there were some capital purchases that couldn't be completed to supply chain challenges such as the street sweeper replacement, you'll notice is in the plan for this year," explained Schroeder. $275,000 has been budgetted for that purchase.
Overall, $7.5 million dollars has been set aside for capital spending in the year ahead.
Among the list of projects is Phase 1 of the industrial park expansion, worth $4.5 million with $3.6 million coming from a debenture.
"This is a big project for our community and our future," said Schroeder.
$500,000 will be spent on each a town-wide water meter replacement effort and a vac truck replacement. $300,000 has also been set aside for re-line about 4,000 meters of concrete sewer.
"The Utility team has used cameras to identify aging concrete sewer lines," explained Schroeder, noting the effort will start in areas identified as high priority due to age and construction of the infrastructure. "I'm told to expect work in the east part of town this year as the infrastructure is older in that area."
$200,000 is earmarked for the continuation of the soap stock removal effort at the Altona/Rhineland Landfill, which Schroeder hopes will be close to complete at the end of this season. As well, $170,000 will be spent on each the continuation of the SW Drainage Project and to buy a new arena ice surfacer. Capping off the list is $120,000 for improvements to the Altona Cemetery expansion and road.
As for what this all means for local taxes, the municipal mill rate will decrease by 5.17% from 20.29 to 19.24.
Schroeder says the impacts of this all depend on the reassessed value of property. 2023 was earmarked as a reassessment year by the Manitoba Assessment Branch.
Residential values in Altona increased 11% on average. As a result, a home valued at $200,000 in 2022 is now worth $222,800. That would result in about an $85 increase to that owner's tax bill.
Commercial properties went up an average 6%. As a result, a property valued at $200,000 in 2022 is now worth $212,00 Though a combination of increased municipal taxes and a decrease in education property taxes, that would result in about a $107.76 decrease on the owner's tax bill.
All of these changes follow zero hikes in two of the last three years, and one year where the increase was just over three per cent.
"We tried doing what we could to help the community out through some of the tough times we just went through, and we're slowly trying to help the community moving forward knowing that inflation was hard on everybody. We're just trying to do our part," said Schroeder.
Tuesday's Public Hearing on the 2023 Financial Plan did bring out a delegation to Council Chambers. Speaking on behalf of the group, Melissa Hildebrand repeated a request for Council to stop funding the South Central Regional Library, citing certain books the library has on hand that the group deems as child pornography.
"Our take on it as Council is that those concerns need to go directly to the library board because are not involved in the policies and procedures of the library," said Schroeder.
A second delegate, Mike Hiebert, presented at the hearing requesting council include active transportation as a budget priority moving forward, as well as to consider funding an active transportation study for the community.
"We sat down with this gentleman in a prior meeting, and it's definitely something we're looking at," said Schroeder, adding the topic has come up among the Town's Outdoor Spaces committee and will come up at their upcoming planning session.