There’s a lot on tap for Greater Vernon’s water utility in 2016. The Greater Vernon Advisory Committee approved a $19 million budget for the water utility during a special meeting Thursday. “The projects presented are reasonable. We’re trying to replace old infrastructure,” said Juliette Cunningham. The budget includes $5 million for new projects and $4 million for work carried over from 2015. Among those moving ahead are replacing water meters, expanding dam capacity and extending the Kalamalka Lake intake. Overall water rates are climbing two per cent, and Cunningham says that’s necessary given the scope of work required. “It’s a big system and many parts of it are quite old,” she said. Opposition to the water budget came from directors Bob Spiers and Gyula Kiss. “I was reluctant to let it go without further study,” said Spiers. “We had no details until 8 a.m. (Thursday). We could have waited another week or two before making a decision.” However, Spiers says his opposition was more procedural than it was against the budget details. “I didn’t see anything that should be thrown out but when there are 30 pages of figures, it should have more review,” he said.
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Don Quixote Note:
"Spiers says that money can help during or for upgrades, but doesn't need to be that high, especially when some of it comes from the rate hikes. "As (Coldstream councillor) Gyula Kiss said, when the reserves total one year's budget, they seem excessive to me."
In addition to wanting more time to check out the details of the budget I did object to the fact that from rates we are adding an additional $655,000 to reserves in 2016.
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| http://www.rdno.ca/agendas/160128_AGN_GVAC_SPEC_amended_Full.pdf (p.44) |
The amount to come from Fees, Charges s/b last years budget plus 2% to get to the announced 2% rate increase that is held out for ratification at a future GVAC Meeting. The target for the total rates calculator s/b $19,459,839 x 1.02 = $19,849,035.
The difference between this amount and the $20,412,773 that is shown in above budget in the Fees, Charges line ($563,737) is that the difference is estimated to be coming from other revenue sources than the rates charges.
The prelim water calculator showed a 2016 target of $20,005,260 which is $156,225 more that my calculated 2% rate increase target.
Using the existing prelim numbers from the calculator and from this report I have devised a prelim water calculator for Residential (Domestic) scrutiny. Simply place your average quarterly number of m3 of water consumption in the yellow box to see how this 2% rates increase will affect you.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Pr6mQbkFiySvj8rXw8XoewZ6dQ-wt9-1_YRrgFFH_G4/edit#gid=0
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