Like many of us this year, the District of Squamish is finding it harder to make its budget meet its current needs and goals these days.
Thus, on May 2, council adopted a plan to rejig the budget to allow access to more funds.
District staff say this spring budget amendment is required because some items have become more expensive, project timelines have changed, and new projects were added since the 2023 plan was adopted in December.
The total increase for the 2023-2027 Financial Plan from the 2022-2026 Financial Plan is $29 million.
This is specifically for projects planned for 2023.
According to District spokesperson Rachel Boguski, budget amendments are a common practice as they allows municipalities to amend their financial plan bylaw in order to accommodate changing circumstances, such as cost increases or changes in scope that are necessary in order to complete a project.
These changes do not impact the tax revenue requirement for this year, Heather Boxrud, the District's chief financial officer, told council.
"Budget changes in the financial plan amendment will not impact annual tax revenue requirements as both Capital and Special projects indicated are fully funded without tax impact. Changes to the operating projects for emergencies are offset by transfers from reserves," reads the staff report.
Some projects are being funded by grants, and so those works are being added to the plan as well as any further funds needed to complete them.
Public works facility
The cost escalations that are resulting in this budget amendment include $10.6 million more for the public works facility.
This is the biggest hit to impact the plan, according to Rolland Russell, the District's senior financial analyst.
The cost of the new public works yard has increased from $26.4 million to $37 million.
Lift in cost from Queens Way lift station
Relatively smaller hits to the budget’s total include emergency expenditures such as the Queens Way lift station repair in January.
Russell said there had been $1.4 million set aside for work on that station, but the replacement will cost $600,000 more than budgeted for.
Emergency operating expenditures for that event also cost an additional $250,000.
"With the failure of the lift station, we needed to ensure that we weren't backing sewage up into the system and into people's basements, so we needed to bring in [vacuum] trucks, etcetera, and basically loop around the lift station so that the sanitary system could continue to work," he said. "Obviously, that is not something that is in your day-to-day plans, and you hope you never have to do that, but sometimes things break."
Russell said that expense will be funded by the wastewater reserve, meaning that there will be a smaller surplus than planned in that fund.
A plan to plan
A bump of $820,000 was added to the plan for research, planning, design and consultants for future projects, including a civic block and new municipal hall, an economic development Innovation Hub, and future facilities at Brennan Park.
Neil Plumb, manager of real estate at the District, told council there are some big decisions that come where these projects are concerned and detailed information will be needed to make them.
“We want to be able to come forward and bring those decisions and move them forward in a meaningful way, so we want to bring these folks in to do the work so that we have great confidence in the decisions that we're making and get that work done and in order to hopefully bring that forward into 2024 five-year financial plan budget process,” Plumb said, adding that doing this work soon will prevent it having to be analyzed over and over in the future.
In addition to the larger projects, some other smaller projects costs increased.
A chiller at Brennan Park
An upgrade to the Brennan Park arena will cost an additional $115,000.
District staff say this project proposes to replace the ammonia chiller and two compressors. “Technical Safety BC stipulates that the chiller be replaced once it reaches the end of its service life, which is 2023. The two compressors are original and well beyond service life, and parts for repairs are becoming harder to source,” Boguski told The Squamish Chief.
“There are a number of alternatives on the market for compressors which are both more efficient and safer as they include more automated controls. There are also options for a new chiller, including a smaller chiller that reduces the amount of ammonia on site by 50%.”
Pickleball increase removed
A pickleball increase was proposed by District staff but then taken out by council.
Ultimately, the project has been paused.
Moving the pickleball courts from Eaglewind near ParkHouse to a new location was set to cost $660,000, up $290,000 from the originally projected $370,000.
According to District staff, last year, when the pickleball courts next to ParkHouse were to be altered, the budget only included mats and the court; it did not include changing locations.
A suitable location has now been found, and the additional costs were due to a site survey, environmental review and the like.
There would also be a higher fence with noise attenuation features, so it is less noisy.
The location was set to be moved from ParkHouse due to noise complaints from residents.
The courts were planned for next to the existing tennis courts near Brennan Park.
However, Coun. Jenna Stoner put forward a motion that passed to remove that increase.
Stoner said she did not feel comfortable with the cost escalation as it seemed to favour one user group in the community.
"[We asked] other single-user groups to come to the table with at least some level of matching funding and I don't think it's fair or equitable that we're spending another $300,000 almost," Stoner said.
Though it passed by the majority vote, Coun. John French, Coun. Eric Andersen, and Mayor Armand Hurford were opposed to the amendment.
"Pickleball is of particular importance to seniors in our community and will be to a greater extent in future," said Andersen.
Amendment passes
Ultimately, council passed three readings of the spring budget amendment on April 18, with only Coun. Andrew Hamilton opposed.
He objected to the $820,000 spend on plans that may change again.
“This funding is being allocated to pre-development planning for multiple very large projects. We do not currently have a mechanism to fund all of these projects, so I am concerned that we are spending money planning projects that we do not have the resources to complete in a timeframe that would make the pre-development planning useful,” Hamilton told The Squamish Chief in a follow-up email exchange. “I do support pre-development planning; it is an essential part of due diligence and critical for finding grant support, but believe that we should make a decision on which major projects will go ahead first, then focus our resources on those projects.”
The spring amendment was officially adopted at a council meeting on May 2.
To watch any council meetings, including the April 18 and May 2, go to the District’s YouTube channel.
**Please note that this story was corrected since it was first posted to reflect the accurate expenses: the pickleball expense was proposed to increase $290,000 (not $260,000); a bump of $820,000 was added to the plan for research (not $850,000); and an additional $115,000 for Brennan Park arena (not an additional $550,000). The Chief apologizes for these errors.
