The Squamish-Lillooet Regional District made some changes to its financial plan bylaw to reflect unanticipated expenses throughout the year, including slight deficits ranging from about $6,500 down to $303.
They are as follows:
• Elections / Union of BC Municipalities – $1,553 – increased UBCM expenses
• Fire Protection Pemberton – $303 – legal fees for a new agreement
• Pemberton Meadows Fire Protection – $303 – legal fees for a new agreement
The Heights Fire Protection 1 – $303 – legal fees for a new agreement
• Furry Creek Open Spaces – $6,510 – increased landscaping costs due to the requests from the community association.
These deficits will be carried forward into the next fiscal year.
Money from cost centres that have extra cash can’t be transferred to those that have deficits because each cost centre has different taxpayers, and is therefore siloed off from others by law.
A cost centre is essentially a budget for a specific place with a particular purpose – for example, Pemberton Meadows Fire Protection is one cost centre. Essentially, this means the SLRD has 89 separate budgets.
Because the Local Government Act dictates that the regional district can’t make any expenditures other than what’s authorized in the financial plan, every time an unanticipated expense arises, the financial plan must be altered to reflect that change.
The SLRD board voted in favour of changing the financial plan bylaw to reflect the extra spending.
“Expenses cannot be incurred over the level of the expenses as laid out in the financial plan bylaw without an amendment to that bylaw unless there is an emergency situation,” said an information report presented to the board on the matter.
The Local Government Act authorizes an amendment to the financial plan bylaw at any time, the report said.
