The Town of Athabasca’s council discussed a double-digit utilities increase in their 2017 draft budget in effort to achieve full cost-recovery by the end of their term.
Town interim CAO Doug Topinka brought the topic up for council discussion during a March 20 budget workshop, saying as currently laid out in the draft budget, water bills are set to increase by 12 per cent and sewer nine per cent.
“Is it something we want to achieve in one year, or do it over a couple, three years to bring it up to achieve (full cost-recovery)?” he asked council.
Coun. Tanu Evans said he recalled having prior discussions about bringing utilities up to cost-recovery and supports incremental increases by two or three per cent, but not “jumping that high in one fell swoop.”
Mayor Roger Morrill said that considering some organizations in town do not pay property taxes, such as school and churches, that this is a way to “at least break neutral on something.”
“What we don’t raise in this we have to raise in our mill rate. It’s coming out of the same pocket,” Morrill said.
Coun. Shelly Gurba noted getting to cost-recovery was a goal council sought out to achieve by the end of term.
“I don’t see a problem with that 12 per cent, just to even it out. If you have a $100 water bill, you’re going to have a $112 bill,” she said.
Coun. Timothy Verhaeghe said he was opposed to such a steep jump.
“We’ll get there, but boy a 12 per cent jump and in this economy, money is tight for people. We have the carbon tax coming in, it’s just another form of tax on some families that maybe can’t afford,” Verhaeghe said.
Coun. Steve Schafer said he also did not like the sound of a 12 per cent increase, and that he is not convinced council should have cost-recovery achieved by the end of term.
Gurba said to think about the amount of water used in schools and the university of a given day, and that “it’s not going to take long to basically get that money back, and it’s not going not be that big of an effect on the actual ratepayer.”
Evans said after hearing the word “school” mentioned, he withdrew his objection to the big percentage jump.
“I never thought personally we would ever achieve it in our own term, but we’re this close … I’ll withdraw my objection, I’ll go along with the majority here,” Evans said.
Council will be meeting April 4 to finalize the budget, unless council has any concerns that need to be addressed further.
Topinka said the water and sewer increase would appear in the draft budget at that time.
