After the election, it’s budget time at city hall
It will likely be the first big issue facing the new elected city council — dealing with the 2012 city budget.
The city’s finance director, Sally Edwards, will be presenting a preliminary budget to council on Dec. 6, the first meeting with the new council.
The details of the budget being presented that day are not known, as city officials continue to discuss the document and won’t release its content before the meeting.
However, the city’s five-year financial plan has a five per cent property-tax increase slated for 2012, but the number can, and often does, change.
Last year, the city was originally looking at a property-tax increase of about 4.5 per cent to make up for a $3.5-million shortfall in the core budget, but revenue projections of $1.5 million and cuts to a couple of supplementary items dropped the hike to 3.3 per cent.
Council then agreed to make up the remaining shortfall — roughly $800,000 — by dipping into prior years’ surplus.
The 2.5 per cent tax hike worked out to roughly an extra $40 hit for the owner of an average home in Kamloops, which is assessed at $308,000.
City council has yet to tackle a list of supplementary budget items, which typically come forward in January.
Nor will the preliminary numbers take into account the city’s revenue, which won’t likely be known until the spring.
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