By Lexi McFarlane, Times Chronicle

The second-quarter budget update for the 2025 fiscal year was delivered by Town of Oliver staff to Council at the August 5 Regular Council Meeting.

Chief Financial Officer John Kurvink presented the reports, which detailed expenses outpacing revenue, year-to-date. Kurvink noted there are some revenues that are being billed in the third fiscal quarter, and as such do not show up for the revenues in this report.

“We don’t bill irrigation until August, so you won’t see that until the third quarter report. And if you’re looking for Recreation Services, we billed two quarters’ worth to the RDOS on July 3rd, so that’s not in this report (either).”

Almost all of the $1.4 million amount that expenses have outpaced revenues by, can be attributed to a recent acquisition of 7057 Meadows Drive by the Town of Oliver, for $1.4 million. The total deficit on the year had been projected to be just over $1.9 million, a figure that includes the 7057 Meadows Drive purchase.

Presently, only 43.7 per cent of the budgeted expenses have been realized, leaving the Town with more than half of the budget still to work with for the third and fourth quarters of the fiscal year.

Category-specific revenue figures were also given in the quarterly report. Building permits have reached 54 per cent of their budget so far, however land use application fees lag behind that figure, at 38 per cent. Bylaw fines are at 20 per cent of the budgeted rate, and cemetery fees at 65 per cent. The resulting overall revenue figure is at 41 per cent of budget.

Two points of clarification were requested, one by Councillor Aimee Grice and one by Councillor David Mattes. Grice wondered about a listed 102 per cent figure for Fire services, which was confirmed to be a revenue figure, and was explained by Kurvink as a grant possibly being included in addition to all expected revenue being collected.

Mattes asked about the Corporate Services Expense, noting a number of $1.65 million listed for that category. Kurvink, after a closer look, confirmed most of that figure is for policing.

The Town of Oliver has previously had surpluses as of second-quarter reporting in the last three fiscal years, with the 2023 fiscal year being a statistical outlier with how large its surplus was. 2022 and 2024 fiscal years reported modest surpluses of $569,000 and $610,000 respectively.