Although many decisions are still to be made, the City of Estevan has wrapped up its budget deliberations.
Council held its second meeting last Wednesday and went over the operations portion of the budget after tackling capital projects the previous week. Because there is over a month left in the year, council will have to wait until at least January to make any final decisions and find out if the City will have a surplus from its 2010 operations.
Council will also have to decide whether or not they wish to raise the mill rate for 2012. The budget, as presented, projected a surplus of roughly $160,000 for the upcoming year meaning a mill rate increase would not be needed to cover costs. However, while speaking to the media following last week's meeting Mayor Gary St. Onge said an increase isn't completely off the table just yet.
"I think there will have to be (an increase). At least a little bit," said St. Onge. "I really think it would be nice if we could start doing some reserves. If you are going to have an increase of a quarter mill, make it a half mill and then start doing some reserves you could use later on or put some of the surplus from last in the reserves instead of using it.
"For example, we talked about it before with snow removal. It would be so nice if you had a year where you didn't use all your snow removal and put it away so that you've got something there so that when you go over, like we could go over this year because we've got another month left, the money is there. But it's a re-election year so we'll have to see what everybody wants to do."
One decision that was made at the meeting was to increase the health levy from .35 mills to .50 mills. St. Onge had indicated earlier this month that an increase was likely and council confirmed that when the motion passed unanimously.
St. Onge said the increase was brought forth because the City and RM of Estevan needed more money to support the Estevan Health Committee's efforts to improve health care in the region and bring more doctors to the city.
However St. Onge also pointed out he is very hopeful this will be the last year that the local governments will have to be directly involved in health care.
"Councillor Chipley brought a good point up last meeting that if a year from now we haven't succeeded in getting these physicians, then perhaps we are just spinning our wheels and blowing money for no reason. I'll be surprised if next year at this time we are saying yes we have to keep doing this."
As well as passing a motion to increase the levy, council also passed a second motion that after this year, all money raised will go towards the construction of new nursing home which is currently in the fundraising stages.
As for the operations portions of the 2012 budget, deliberations went relatively smoothly and quickly with very few questions from council.
Although the year is not over, it is possible the City will have a surplus as the wet weather that plagued southeast Saskatchewan for much of the spring and summer prevented City employees from completing a number of tasks. For example, the City had budgeted just over $30,000 for tree removal but only spent $7,350.
Council also appointed an acting City manager and City clerk at last week's meeting. City treasurer Tim Leson will serve as the acting City manager while Jim Puffalt is away on vacation and executive assistant Judy Pilloud was appointed acting City clerk for Lyndon Stachoski who is on medical leave.
