qathet Regional District's (qRD) board will consider asking staff to provide detailed budgetary analysis compiled from the last 10 years.
At the April 3 finance committee meeting, Electoral Area E director and committee chair Andrew Fall said that in January there was a motion made to ask staff to table some budgetary information. Some was put forward at the March finance committee meeting and there was a discussion that had some tension between the desire by the board for receiving information as requested, and the desire by the board not to overwhelm staff during busy budget season, according to Fall.
“So, I put forward a notice of motion partly to help drive the discussion forward a bit that I developed and discussed with [manager of financial services] Linda Greenan to make sure it was feasible,” said Fall. “What it does is it simplifies the request and clarifies it. It basically is a collation of information in existing past financial reports for the past 10 years.
“It’s my understanding that it would not take that much staff time to pull the information out of the financial plans for the last 10 years and collate them into a report that summarizes information. If any directors or the public is interested, they have a starting point. It provides the essence of the costs.”
Electoral Area B director Mark Gisborne said what he has been looking for is the total cost of each service over the past 10 years. He said he went home and pulled out that data and created his own chart. The information would be helpful for next year’s financial cycle to see where the regional district has been over the past 10 years and the total cost of each service, he added.
“When you see one service going from under $1 million to over $3 million, you ask better questions,” said Gisborne. “I’m referring in this case to solid waste management. Around this table we have a pretty good idea why that is happening, and with the information, we can explain to our constituents in a better manner why some taxes are going up and some taxes are going down.
“It will be helpful for our financial planning process. As we get this information brought to us, we can ask for more clarity or understanding and detail as we get ready for our next financial plan.”
Fall said financial plans are complex and the collation would provide a snapshot from the taxpayer point of view.
Gisborne said his desire for a report would be to outline the total cost to taxpayers for each service over the past 10 years.
“For us at the board, it is most beneficial for us to be understanding the tax implications of each service,” said Gisborne. “As a decision-making body, we need to know the total cost over the last 10 years, so we have a better understanding.”
The committee voted to recommend to the board that the board direct staff to provide a collation of the total tax requisitions and residential tax rates by service and area from the financial plans for fiscal years 2014 to 2024, and the annual requisition comparison by service, and that the board rescind the resolution from the January 2024 board meeting that the board direct staff to produce a similar document that contains the total contributions.
Join the Peak's email list for the top headlines right in your inbox Monday to Friday.
