By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle

A seemingly simple procedural item around the 2024 Osoyoos budget turned into finger pointing which then gave way to a degree of confusion during the Feb. 27 regular council meeting. 

According to the agenda, council was simply to provide direction as to where and when they wished to continue to deliberate the budget. 

But the meeting appeared to go off the rails when Councillor Jim King expressed his desire to continue tinkering with the budget, appearing to push the blame for the outsized original budget on town administration.

Describing the original budget document as a “wish list from staff” which “we then had an opportunity to review it and cut back,” King went on to suggest it was the administration’s role to propose further cuts. 

“I’d like to make a recommendation that it actually goes back to staff to review it and see what’s really needed for 2024 and try to bring it down another five or six per cent. I still find 24 per cent is too high,” the councillor said. 

This then provoked a clarification from Rod Risling, Osoyoos CAO who said: “The budget was presented and prepared based on the direction of council. All items within that budget for the vast majority were discussed in various committees of the whole meetings and other council meetings. 

“So the budget that was put forward originally, as far as the draft of August 15 council gave direction on what to include. So I just want to make that clarification that the budget that was in front of council, for the vast majority, was agreed as decisions of council.”

King then said he “found it difficult” to make decisions on the budget without a third party consultant present to answer budget-related questions. He said in all his years on council this was the first year there was no consultant present. 

Mayor Sue McKortoff disagreed with King saying, “I think we had all of our directors here and we could ask questions at several different meetings concerning budget issues. I’m not quite sure what added person you think was necessary.” 

King noted True Consulting personnel had been on hand in the past to answer questions. 

“I think there’s no rush to move this forward in the next couple of weeks without more information,” King added.

Councillor Johnny Cheong then inquired what additional information King was seeking.

King said he wanted to see the fully updated budget, and he also expressed taxation amounts that come from outside of council’s control, like school taxes, etc. “If that increases it by 10 per cent then we’re back up to 30 per cent,” he said.  “I believe we can do a better job by previewing this again,” he added. 

As Jim Zakall, Director of Finance/Deputy CAO had earlier explained to council during the Sonora special budget meeting of Feb. 15, once again said: “Historically the other tax jurisdictions. . . we are getting these requisitions sometimes late April right up to May 15. 

“We have no control over their approval processes as far as their timings other than statutorily they have to have them into us by May 15.” 

He added: “We are focusing on our area and what we need for our municipality so I think that‘s very important for council’s consideration.”

Councillor Myers Bennett then joined in saying he agreed with King that “24 per cent is a lot better than it was but when we add the other things on its going to come up and I would like to have a little more time to see if we can tweak it a little bit better. 

“We just got this on Friday and we haven’t had time to go through to see if there is something else we can find,” he said adding he would like to bring down the 24 per cent increase further. 

Zakall highlighted that there was not an expectation of council making a decision at the Feb. 27 meeting, but rather administration wanted council to know what the changes they had approved would look like. 

Zakall has been working through the revisions to the budget document as voted on by council during the special open budget meeting held at the Sonora Centre on Feb. 15 and said he needed three more days to fully complete the revised budget document. 

This meeting was only to decide on a date, time and place for further discussion on the budget and possibly third reading if there were no further changes desired by council. 

Council then discussed the possibility of holding the meeting at the Sonora Centre although King noted there was only about one third of the number of attendees at the last special meeting compared with the first and as such a smaller venue might suffice.

“I think it should be an open meeting,” King added. Town staff immediately clarified that “any budget deliberations must be done in an open meeting.” 

Once again town administration highlighted that the purpose of this agenda item was to seek council’s desire of when and where the next budget meeting would be held. 

In the end, a special open meeting on the budget on the evening of March 12 was agreed upon, dependent on the Sonora Community Centre being available.