sandra m stanway
Brooks Bulletin
The city’s proposed 2025 budget will impose a 5.75 per cent residential property tax increase so homes assessed at $300,000 will pay an additional $22 per month, including an increase of about $10 on utilities, depending on water use.
Much of the financial pressure is due to policing which accounts for 3.75 per cent of the tax increase as policing costs will rise from $3.640 million to $5.096 million. Policing costs to the city include multi-year contracts as well as tangible items such as bodycams which are expected to arrive in the detachment area next year.
“Those are all putting pressure on the budget,” said finance director Bill McKennan.
Mayor John Petrie said the city is strapped in RCMP decision making.
“They can make decisions and they did that with the new contract and we pay the retro pay and what they’re buying, whether it’s new guns or cameras, we have no say but we have to pay,” he said.
The city, like all municipalities, has been struggling with provincial downloading including infrastructure cuts. The Local Government Fiscal Framework (LGFF) will return somewhat to its previous level over the next two years but it is expected to decrease in coming years while inflation continues to increase.
Expenditures that the city can control have been restrained and reduced where reasonable with no new borrowing in this year’s budget. However, borrowing will be required in future years for projects including a new sewer treatment plant.
“Overall, the theme of the budget was restraint which it has been for a number of years now so to accomplish that most of the accounts were frozen at the 2024 expenditure levels,” McKennan said.
Additional details of the City of Brooks’ budget will be printed in the Jan. 8 edition of The Bulletin.
