This year’s Powell River Regional District planning budget will be holding the line.
At a recent planning committee meeting, Linda Greenan, manager of financial services, presented the preliminary draft of the planning budget for 2015 to 2019. She said the manager of planning services had prepared the budget.
“It basically comes down to a zero-per-cent tax increase,” Greenan said, regarding the planned tax requisition for 2015.
The 2015 proposed planning budget identifies four projects. The official community plan for Electoral Area A has an allotment of $4,500, zoning amendments for the Lund Watershed total $1,000, the official community plan review and update for Electoral Area D (Texada Island) is $18,000, and other projects, such as the Green Shores pilot project, have an allocation of $5,000. With a contingency of $2,500, the overall proposed planning budget is $31,000.
Greenan said the project budgets for 2015 are estimated to be about $13,000 less than the projects carried out in 2014. She added that the costs do not include Powell River Regional District staff time.
Greenan said in future years, the budget would not increase substantially. She said in 2015, it looks like the planning department’s impact on residential tax rates will be $19.23 per $100,000, the same as 2014. That number is expected to increase incrementally to $21.81 in the 2019 budget year.
Stan Gisborne, committee chair, asked if any planning grants were available for the regional district. Greenan said there were infrastructure planning grants available but she was not aware of any grants specifically for planning.
In reviewing the budget specifics, Dave Murphy, Electoral Area D director at the time, said he noted that map sales, budgeted at $384 in 2014, had actual revenue of $2,422. He asked Greenan if she didn’t see that trend continuing into 2015 and beyond. The budget figure for 2015 is $396.
“I just projected it the same as it was budgeted in 2013 and 2014 because it’s sporadic and tough to plan,” Greenan said.
The tax requisition to operate the regional district’s planning function in 2015 is $340,637.
Colin Palmer, Electoral Area C director, said he’d been with the regional district for 15 years and had never seen a no-change planning budget.
“I was kind of stunned when I looked at it,” he said. “I thought there has got to be something wrong here. I guess it’s because that nice reserve took place from the prior year’s surplus, so that helped.
“Usually, we’ve tried to moan and mumble about planning, how there were big surpluses every year because it meant that money wasn’t being spent. It’s encouraging because we don’t have to say to the staff ‘get the budget down.’ I’m not unhappy with it.”
The committee voted to endorse the proposed 2015 to 2019 financial plan.
