Drumheller Town Council approved the Town’s operating and capital budgets at the Monday, February 22, 2016 Council meeting.
    The Town states that the Operating Budget includes a three per cent increase to property tax and service fees. “This is a zero balanced budget with no surplus,” stated Director of Corporate Services Barb Miller.  The municipal request for 2016 is $8,454,975. ($8,169,065 -2015)
    Working towards the goal of full cost recovery, the 2016 budget shows a deficit of $378,988 for water utility and a deficit of $18,650 for sewer utility.
    The 2016 tax supported operating budget will ensure fiscal accountability and provides administration the legal authority to out the day-to-day transactions necessary to operate municipal business efficiently and effectively.  
    The 2016 Capital Plan is $5,606,327  ($5.9 – 2015) of which $1,646,063 are projects carried forward (work in progress) from 2015, resulting in a new capital project funding request of $3,960,264 for 2016.
    Some of the capital projects are contingent of grant funding from either the federal or provincial governments.  With the exception of preliminary engineering, those projects funded by grants will not proceed until grant-funding allocations have been approved.
    The sources of funds for the Capital Plan are $2,018,847 from reserves, $3,546,222 in grants and $41,258 from other sources. (non-government grants/community organizations).
    The major budget expense of $2,110,778 will be the modernization of the Aquaplex which will be funded through Municipal Sustainable Initiative.
    Each year, in addition to the capital budget, administration identifies priority operating expenditures that are deemed to be non-regular and/or high maintenance costs and classify these items in the Capital Reinvestment Program. The budget request for the 2016 is $641,500 ($686,345 – 2015) Major expenses will be Road and Streets  $225,000, Aquaplex $163,500 and the Arena $195,000.  
    On Tuesday, February 23, Mayor Terry Yemen spoke with inSide Drumheller, “We started off by looking at a 2% increase, but that didn’t work out.
    When you compare that to a lot of other communities, I am sure they would be envious of our three per cent increase.  There are towns that have budget increases of five to seven percent.  I know that no one likes to pay taxes and this council has been particularly diligent when it comes to budget time. They have been aggressively looking for cost cutting areas within the budget.”
    Councillor Jay Garbutt also spoke with inSide Drumheller, “Looking at the operating budget, the overwhelming majority of our costs are related to staffing, and those obligations are bound by collective bargaining agreements. We have certain percentage rate increases that are required by contract without union staff.
    We have no choice but to see increased costs along the way.  That is what has made the challenge so great for Council in trying to keep the remainder of the costs, that we do have some have direct control over, at the bare minimum.”
    Garbutt further expressed “I have to congratulate our Corporate Services staff, particularly the Director, Barb Miller.   In the past, I felt that I needed to comb though each and every area, looking for items that the budget appeared to be larger than necessary. Barb Miller is now doing that work in advance of our budget discussions and bringing an entirely different perspective to the budget process than I’ve seen before and I am grateful for that.”