Number crunching time has arrived for the members of Osoyoos town council and the town’s six department directors.
Starting with a scheduled 12-hour session on Thursday, councillors and staff will begin going through the arduous task of going through the 2012 budget, which they hope to finalize in early March, said Mayor Stu Wells.
“The initial part of the process is all of the councillors and directors putting together a sort of what we call a wish list, then see if the numbers allotted to the list and whether or not we can afford it,” said Wells. “When all the final numbers are in and we’ve whiddled down the wish lists, we see where we stand and if we can afford them.”
Department directors play a significant role in the budget process as they make key recommendations on what they see as priorities in the various departments, said Wells.
The first budget meeting is set to begin at 8 a.m. on Thursday and continue for 12 hours, with another full-day session set for Friday, said Wells.
“We’ll start nailing the numbers down Thursday and see how long we can go before we get really tired and then we’re back at it again Friday,” he said. “We usually get a great deal of work done those first two days and I’m hoping that will be the case once again for this year’s budget.”
Because councillors Mike Plante and Sue McKortoff will be going through their first budget process, he’s looking forward to working with them as part of their learning curve, Wells said.
This past year was an excellent one for the town in terms of major capital projects, including the new sewer from the town’s settling ponds, the northwest sewer program and major waterpark development and hopefully there will be more of the same for 2012, said Wells.
Council’s goal every year is to keep any tax increase to a reasonable level, while maintaining an outstanding level of service, said Wells.
Jim Zakall, the town’s director of financial planning, said the town’s current budget is $23.12 million, which should increase marginally depending on the tax increase council will approve at the end of the budget process.
“The purpose of the budget process is to put in place a financial plan that spells out things like tax increases and utility increases,” he said. “In our five-year financial plan, our policies and objectives are stated as staying within the range of the cost of living, without going over.”
The town has 35 full-time employees on the payroll, including the six town directors and another nine part-time employees, said Zakall.
The budget process varies from year to year, but things usually wrap up around late April as the new tax rate has to be finalized by May 15 under statutory regulations, said Zakall.
