Deliberations on the City of Estevan's 2011 budget are underway.
The members of council began poring over the dense budget document during a special meeting Tuesday afternoon at city hall. It was expected they would go through the capital expenditure portion before moving on to operating expenses.
Mayor Gary St. Onge said one of the "themes" of the budget is to finish the work they were unable to complete in 2010 due in large part to weather related issues and to not be quite as aggressive in 2011 with more hurdles expected on the horizon.
"We realize that there may be some problems with dewatering if we have a normal winter because a lot of those places never did dry last year," said St. Onge. "In fact water was still running into Boundary Dam just a few weeks ago."
St. Onge said growth is also on the agenda. It was noted at Monday's regular meeting of council that a $10 million reservoir will soon need to be constructed on the north side of the city to accommodate any potential new homes in that area. Although some concerns were expressed about the amount of debt the City is taking on due to the growth, St. Onge feels council must strike while the iron is hot.
"We can either go up in debt or not grow. You pay the debt off when you grow you get more tax. Watermains, when you replace them, people pay that back over 10 years. That is just money you have borrowed out to your citizens," said St. Onge.
"You can't just not grow. You have to keep going because you won't always grow so when the time is there to grow, you gotta grow. Then, you live on that growth when it becomes stagnant for several years and you don't have to do as much because you are not growing."
St. Onge noted there are two big-ticket budget items tied into the city's growth - the reservoir and a new ladder truck for the Estevan Fire Rescue Service.
"This ladder truck that we are going to be looking at quite seriously because we have some of these new hotels are high and we have to be able to get (firefighters) up there," he said. "It's an expensive item."
It's expected the growth will also come at a cost for local taxpayers as St. Onge predicted council will need to increase taxes by at least one mill.
"I think we are looking at a full mill to start with. We'll see what happens when we pare (the budget) down but I think there will definitely be an increase," he said. "And because a lot of our growth has to do with water, we will also be looking at water bills once again."
Overall, the City's initial financial plan is projecting operating revenues of $20.16 million and expenditures of $18.28 million for an overall surplus of $1.88 million. After the capital expenditures are factored in, a deficit of $719,930 is forecasted.
The budget deliberations were expected to continue today. If council is unable to conclude their work today, the deliberations would continue Thursday.
