By Sebastian Kanally, Times Chronicle
A proposed debt increase in 2026 and 2028 highlights the most recent changes as Oliver is nearing the end of deliberations on its financial plan.
The town has been deliberating and finalizing its five-year financial plan since November of last year. On March 11, 2024 council passed the first three readings of the 2023-2027 amended financial plan and the 2024-2028 financial plan.
The former was adopting the changes made throughout to the plan, of which there were four total throughout the last year. Following this adoption, council heard a brief presentation on the final relatively small scale changes before the planned adoption of this year’s 2024-2028 plan on April 2, 2024.
The main changes revolved around how the capital plan would be paid for resulting in adding debt funding to projects in 2026 and 2028. Two projects planned for 2028, the Sawmill Road Rehabilitation project and the intersection re-alignment at Mckinney, Black Sage Road, and Tucelnuit, are both planned to accumulate $620,000 and $1.03 million in debt respectively.
Slotted in for 2026, the proposed domestic pump station will add $5.7 million, and then another $1.65 million in debt in 2028.
Planned projects are sometimes contingent on grants being secured, but in the plan only 2024 grants are secured so some reassessment may be needed.
The town is “counting heavily on grants to execute the financial plan going forward, instead of raising utility rates or property taxation,“ said John Kurvink, chief financial officer.
This focus on adding debt to pay for certain projects instead of simply raising tax rates was a topic of discussion for council back in their February budget discussions when a Water Councillor was particularly disgruntled with the 15 per cent water tax increase and the 30 per cent sewer tax increase that passed in December of 2023.
Kurvink also expressed hope that interest rates come down by the time the town needs to borrow these amounts, as “they are at 4.7 per cent if we were to borrow today”.
The town should be receiving their final assessments from the Regional District of the Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS) soon, and then the town can work on passing the 2024 Tax Rate Bylaw, which is the last stage of this process and is anticipated to be adopted by May 13.
The town also received some feedback from the public consultation on the budget. Of the feedback received, two community members pointed out the large increase to sewer and municipal services this year.
“An across the board increase of that amplitude is very hard to swallow, even if it is necessary,” one community member was quoted in the report as saying.
Other feedback the town received focused on the annual funding requirements to fund current and future infrastructure maintenance and the replacement of assets going forward.
