Formal political party labels aside, after four days of deliberations on what to leave in and what to leave out of Cochrane’s Draft Budget 2024 -2026, some philosophical Town Council battle lines are clear.
The back-and-forth between and among council and administration is over, after Thursday’s session resulted in a 4-2 vote in favour of an adjusted option to what administration had originally proposed. It will be formally voted on at the Dec. 11 council meeting, but the way council decided to go about the process this year means it’s done – take it to the bank.
The first iteration of the proposed budget would have resulted in a 3.45 per cent tax increase, but the new version was upped to 3.85 per cent after a couple of days of deliberations and was approved on Nov. 23.
During those talks, two fundamentally different approaches to public sector budgeting became apparent.
One approach says to first agree on what an acceptable target tax increase should be, make that your guiding principle, and figure out how to deliver services and capital projects under that constraint.
Coun. Morgan Nagel has t-shirts advocating this.
On the other side of the philosophical fence, adherence to a hard target (seen as arbitrary by some) needlessly ties council’s hands when weighing the pros and cons of various spending alternatives, and doesn’t reflect what Cochranites really want.
Coun. Tara McFadden sits right beside Nagel but is on the opposite side of the fence here. Picking some “magic number” makes no sense to her.
It boiled down to a difference between wants and needs.
Over the four days administration had repeatedly characterized the '3.45 per cent budget' as a “bare bones” budget they had arrived at after meticulously going through a page-by-page exercise looking for areas to trim down to essentials.
As different areas came up for discussion though, it became clear there were some spending priorities council was having difficulty with.
And the updated version they eventually supported includes funding for four new firefighters, and opening the foyer of the Transit building for longer hours. Taken together, those additions pushed the tax increase to 4.85 per cent – still the lowest of all like-sized cities in the province and below the average of 5.73 per cent.
Cochrane also still leads the pack in terms of operating spending per capita, according to the latest figures.
Total municipal taxes would have gone up $93 annually had the first draft been accepted. The new version means the average Cochranite’s taxes will rise $99.46 on the average assessed home, up $10.34 from the original proposal.
The Glenbow pathways improvements sparked a discussion, as it has in the community. It was the number one issue raised by residents attending an impromptu info session put on by Coun. Marni Fedeyko and McFadden at the SLS Centre a few days earlier.
The proposed paving and removal of some trees along the much-loved pathway has ignited some heated discussion from residents and councillors who use the pathway.
A $990,000 grant dedicated to the project could be in jeopardy if the project is delayed, but rather than making a decision, council decided to explore their options further, in terms of further public engagement, since there were so many strong opinions.
For now, the $1,650,000 project is going ahead with a $990,000 grant and $660,000 coming from Town reserves.
Fedeyko said council had “failed the community” and she’d rather not proceed with the project and lose the grant.
Nagel said he’s heard the arguments on both sides, and abandoning the project now would be akin to turning down a “Black Friday deal on trails.”
Since it’s funded by a grant and reserves, that project has no effect on taxes.
He did end up joining Fedeyko in being the lone voices voting against the budget, since it was bumped up to a 3.85 percent increase.
“I’m not going to vote for these tax increases – I think they’re too high,” he said. “Perhaps our council group is not serious about trying to keep taxes down,” he said.
Fedeyko voiced her dismay on a number of occasions, that there were millions of dollars on the document that she wanted more details on.
“Clarity on the entire budget is unclear,” she said.
Coun. Susan Flowers weighed in one the other side.
“Cut, cut, cut makes no sense to me,” she said, citing the important services Cochranites often tell her are needed. Affordable housing – a national crisis – was strongly supported by Flowers and others. It received $150,000 for an action plan.
Mayor Jeff Genung praised administration for their 211-page draft budget, calling it the most detailed he had ever seen.
He pointed out that residents will see the same levels of street sweeping, snow removal and parks maintenance they’ve been seeing, and he’s satisfied the Town isn’t overspending, adding people looking for more cuts are missing the point.
“This lean machine is already running that way,” he said.
The finalized Budget will be presented to council at the committee of the whole meeting Dec.4, final review and discussion, followed by the formal vote Dec. 11.
