City council to hash out details of new budget including tax hike, wish list at Tues. session

NEWS/ CITY HALL — By noon Tuesday, Kamloops ratepayers should have a pretty good idea how much more they’ll be paying in property taxes this year.

City council sits down tomorrow morning to put the finishing touches on the budget, which will then go to staff to be put into final form.

“We’re talking about the whole gamut,” finance director Sally Edwards told The Armchair Mayor News today, including the overall budget increase and the nitty gritty of supplementary items such as $260,000 in study money for a performing arts theatre.

Deadline for adoption of the budget is May 15 but Edwards expects it to be back in front of council April 8.

Several councilors have said they want to keep the budget hike below two percent.

The performing arts theatre has dominated discussion of the so-called “wish list” supplementary items but there are a lot of other things on it as well. Transit, policing, programming, public works, information technology and recreation could all benefit or have requests put off for another year depending on their level of support from councillors.

Edwards said the special morning session should be able to hash out overall direction on the tax rate and specific items. “We’ve been at this quite a while. In my opinion there’s been lots of discussion.”

Federal changes to the gas tax fund and New Building Canada Fund remain a question mark because the Conservative government won’t provide details until early next month.

The feds say the gas tax fund, or GTF, will be available for a wider range of projects but critics say there’s been some shuffling of eligible projects between that and the Building Canada Fund for infrastructure.

The money is subject to agreements between the federal government and each province.

Edwards said the City has received $3.3 million a year since 2010, and municipalities are budgeting on the assumption that level of funding will still be there but some wish-list items could be affected if it doesn’t come through.

Municipalities have been urging the feds to make guidelines for the two funds available sooner so they can include them in their budgets.

“It leaves us all hanging,” said Edwards. “It’s significant dollars.”

She said it appears the same total money will be available — “they’re just saying it a little differently.”