With Timmins council getting its first look at the 2023 budget this week, the mayor says there's an appetite to try and reduce potential increases.
The first draft of the proposed budget includes a 3.32 per cent net budget increase. At $46.16 million, the net expenditure is $1.48 million more than 2022.
The 2023 water and wastewater rates have already been approved. The average five-room household will pay an extra $56 — $23 for water and $33 for wastewater. The low-income utility rebate was also increased by $50.
At the meeting, all but one of the councillors present spoke about items in the document. Ward 1 Coun. Rock Whissell was the only member not to comment. Ward 5 Coun. Steve Black was not at the meeting.
The goal through preparing the budget, said CAO Dave Landers, was for an increase of about 1.9 per cent, but there were financial pressures that increased that.
The overall gross budget is $111.4 million. With the budgets of agencies, boards and commissions (ABCs) factored in, Landers said it's about $143 million.
Over more than two hours, Landers, finance director Natalie Moore and other department heads presented the document to the new council.
After the meeting, Mayor Michelle Boileau said "it's difficult" taking the first look at the budget with the proposed increase knowing that there are still the ABCs, which are approved by the respective boards, to add in.
"We can expect (a) further increase to be added on should we choose to approve the budget as is. That being said, I think after tonight’s discussions it was obvious that there’s definitely an appetite to try to reduce any potential increase in the taxation fund. I believe that hearing the discussions, staff will take a closer look at what they put forward in the different budgets for their departments to see if there’s anywhere that we could reduce costs for this year,” she said.
The budget presented also didn't include any of the requests from individual councillors. That list totals over $9.7 million, though some were either taken off the list or addressed at the meeting.
"Council will have to make decisions in terms of which of those requests we want to entertain or do we try to just keep the budget lean and specific to what the department staff feel like they need to be able to ensure adequate and appropriate operations and future planning for the departments as well,” said Boileau.
New direction for the fleet plan
For the first time, a two-year fleet plan worth a total of $3.9 million is being presented.
It includes different strategies for replacing vehicles and downsizing some of the greater fleet to rent equipment where it makes sense.
Ongoing challenges in the industry are driving the proposal, said manager of purchasing and fleet Gord Deacon.
"No longer can we tender an order for something as simple as a pick-up truck and see it in a month or two. We have had a conventional pick-up truck on order now for a year,” said Deacon.
With the traditional pick-up trucks with an eight-foot box being "virtually non-existent" he said they've taken a deep dive into how vehicles are being replaced.
"We need to determine if the supervisor, for example, needs a truck or can perform their job adequately with a mid-sized and available SUV,” he said.
As such, the eight pickup trucks proposed in the two-year fleet plan may be replaced with a smaller vehicle. Any purchases requiring council approval would be brought back to the table, he said.
The full list of vehicles being proposed is available here.
Councillor questions and comments
Ward 3 Coun. Bill Gvozdanovic is not happy about what the budget includes, or doesn't include, for the Schumacher area.
“Before I ask any questions, I’d like to just send a message to my residents of Ward 3 that I’m very disappointed because I see in all this capital stuff there is absolutely nothing for Ward 3 and I apologize to those residents. And I’ll try to advocate to get some stuff done, but I don’t see anything here. It’s disappointing,” he said.
After Landers suggested taking another look at the Enterprise Fleet Management agreement from 2021, some councillors are supportive of reopening the discussion.
The agreement pitched in November 2021 would see the city no longer paying costs upfront for light vehicles through the capital budget and instead paying a monthly fee through the annual operating budget and allowing for more consistent costs.
“I spoke against the Enterprise proposal last council, I have come to just reconsider that. So if there’s appetite to talk about that again I won’t stand in anybody’s way,” said Robin.
Coun. John Curley echoed Robin's comments and said it be worth bringing the program back to review.
Robin also asked staff to look into whether Google could be used for Timmins Transit. In other areas, for example, you can put in where you need to go to and from and Google will show the bus routes to take.
Landers said it will take a bit of research to look into and staff will follow up.
Coun. Kristin Murray sits on the Ontario Good roads Association board and said there have been lengthy discussions there about the asphalt monopoly and the cost of roadwork.
With a $225,000 asphalt recycler in the budget, she asked about the project and whether asphalt will be brought in from other areas.
Right now, director of public works and environmental services Ken Krcel said the city wants to use it for its own maintenance work. It will recycle between 10 and 12 tons of asphalt per hour.
Moving forward, Coun. Lorne Feldman said it's important to start looking at how to get revenue from sources other than residents, who he said are overtaxed.
"And I think we have an obligation as I said to pursue revenues and options which can alleviate some of that burden as opposed to kind of taking let’s shrug our shoulders there’s not much we can do and we have to give these annual increases. I truly believe our municipality is one of the wealthiest communities in the world with our resource bases - forestry, minerals,” he said.
One area he wants to look at is the royalties upper levels of government receive from forestry and mining companies, for example, and what portion the city is receiving back.
He also asked about what the budget increase means from a property tax standpoint.
“We don’t have that yet, that comes later in the process when we look at rates and ratios and once we have the amount from the ABCs as well,” said Moore.
Other municipalities do provide that information during the budget process.
Nearby in Sudbury, for example, it provides a budget question and answer document showing the impact of levy increases for homeowners. While that document is more in-depth showing the impact on a variety of house assessments, other municipalities provide what the impact is on the average home value during budget discussions instead of after the document is approved.
Big-ticket items
The budget being presented includes a full list of the capital projects over $100,000. Some of the higher-ticket or notable items are:
- $1 million debt repayment for the Golden Manor redevelopment financing, which is being done via external financing. The larger sum, according to the budget, is to lessen the impact in 2024 when full payment is required.
- $650,000 for a skateboard park
- $500,000 for Public Works site upgrade design
- $400,000 for corporate building condition assessment, being funded by reserve
- $250,000 for a landfill site orientation and improvements
- $225,000 for an asphalt recycler
- $225,000 for a brine storage facility
- $200,000 to repair the piers and retaining wall at the Mattagami boat launch
- $200,000 for a shop service truck replacement
- $200,000 for roof replacement at city hall
- $150,000 to resurface the multi-use pad at Melview Park in Porcupine
Some of the proposed road projects over $100,000 are:
- $14.7 million for the Connecting Link. It includes:
- $13.6 million for Connecting Link work, with $10 million being funded through external financing
- $800,000 for designing the future phases
- $300,000 for Aecom to do contract admin
- $206,000 for general surface treatment
- $1.5 million for grind and pave
- $680,000 for the Maclean culvert replacement
- $275,910 for the Suzanne culvert replacement, being funded by reserve
- $175,000 for the Porcupine River (Hoyle) bridge design, being funded by reserve
- $500,000 for Government Road North pulverization, grading and surface treatment
- $115,000 for Connaught pulverization, additional granular material compaction, and road grading to properly cross section
- $115,000 for Jaguar pulverization, additional granular material compaction, and road grading to properly cross section
For transit, the biggest-ticket item is $1.7 million for the Fairbox system software, which will be offset with funding. There's also $1.3 million for the ongoing transit terminal renovation. For new buses, there's $700,000 budgeted for a conventional bus at 2023 prices and $670,000 for a bus ordered in 2022. Both of those purchases would be offset with funding from other sources.
The budget presentation is available here.
