Adam Prudhomme
Beaver Staff
Greater Napanee council got its first look at some of the major expenses coming up in 2019 on Monday as it held the second of four planned budget meetings.
Deputy chief administrative officer and treasurer Mark Day presented council with a first draft of the major expenses, which projects to be $4,841,270.
“To date the 2019 major expense budgets are $117,000 lower than 2018 major expense budget,” said Day. “We’ve decreased it a bit, that’s just about on average over the last five years of what we predicted for 2019.”
Service contracts ($768,110), contractors ($666,600), materials such as sand, salt and gravel ($574,460) and insurance ($516,520) are among the biggest costs factored into the overall total.
“We try where we can on major expenses to hold the line,” said Day. “At the very end some of the challenges we do face, with inflation or special projects or things we see coming that affect operation, we will increase those line items accordingly. On those types of areas where we can control, we do do our best to look for efficiencies and maintain those costs.”
Day says there are still some unknowns surrounding the 2019 budget, mainly how much funding they will receive from the province.
“It’s roughly about 12 per cent of our revenues,” Day said of provincial funding. “A couple of other municipalities, they’re really on hold with their budget until they know what’s going on with it.”
Day says he couldn’t even offer a guess as to when those numbers might come down.
Council also heard from Greater Napanee Emergency Services deputy chief Bill Hammond, who presented the 2019 fleet rationalization plan. That plan, the first of a new five year plan cycle, recommends $710,000 in vehicle replacement costs for this year.
Hammond says the town was able to offset some costs by selling their surplus vehicles through a web site known as GovDeals.com, where they’ve seen a much bigger increase in the return on the sale of old vehicles compared to what they got when bidding was much more limited. GovDeals.com allows them to reach a national audience compared to their old method, which relied on advertising at a local level.
Council voted to receive for information the presentations and will vote on the major expense budget at a later council meeting. The next budget meeting is scheduled for March 7.