The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Flin Flon city council proposes a modest cut to spending and an even smaller boost to taxes in an annual budget that could be adopted as early as this month. A draft copy of council's 2013 budget, presented to the media last week, projects $11.37 million in spending, a $322,000 drop, or 2.8 per cent, over last year's expenditures. At the same time, council proposes to increase the residential mill rate by 0.99 per cent, a raise that would have a relatively minimal impact on taxpayers. The commercial mill rate would go up 0.03 per cent. The increases are far less than what some homeowners feared as council grapples with a dwindling tax base and major expenditures like the new water treatment plant. But how can council reduce total spending while raising taxes, even modestly? The answer, says Chief Administrative Officer Mark Kolt, is that other sources of revenue, two in particular, are lower from last year. First, Kolt said the city plans to draw $114,000 from the general reserve, far less than the $267,000 drawn last year. Second, the Building Manitoba Fund, a provincial government program, is providing nearly $100,000 less in funding to the city this year. See 'Cuts' on pg. Continued from pg. Among the draft budget's spending cuts: $61,260 less for unallocated wages, bringing spending in that area down to $208,130. There is also $50,000 less for parks and playgrounds, lowering spending there to $299,590; and $40,000 less for recreation programs classified as 'other,' bringing that total to $112,480. The city further found room to cut $27,600 from its sewage treatment and disposal budget, lowering those costs to $541,530. Also proposed is a $22,700 cut for garbage collection, making that cost a projected $299,710. The previously enacted cancellation of the city's spring clean-up of household garbage saved $20,500. Still, there are some departmental spending increases. The budget for water treatment, for instance, is going from zero dollars to $420,090 by virtue of the new water treatment plant. And that's just a best guess, since the city has said it will not have a full handle on the treatment plant costs until it is actually operational. It is expected to open after August. Budget forum The draft budget, which will be presented to the public at a forum this Thursday, passed first and second reading at last week's council meeting. The third and final reading will come as early as next Tuesday, Aug. 20. That gives council time to make changes based on any public feedback received at this Thursday's budget forum. It will get underway at 7 p.m. The draft budget shows that the city spent $14,070 less in 2012 than it had budgeted _ $11.69 million compared to $11.70 million. Absent from last week's council meeting _ and thus the initial budget votes _ were councillors Bill Hanson, Colleen McKee and Karen MacKinnon. The Reminder will have more on the proposed budget on Wednesday.
