An audit on Rocky View County’s financial statements for 2012 shows an $8.4-million drop in debt from the previous year.
The audit was completed and presented by Pricewaterhouse Coopers group on April 30.
The county’s debt decreased from about $75 million in 2011 to roughly $66 million in 2012. This change is due to transfer of debt for the Airdrie Annexation ($750,000), annual payments on the County’s operating and capital debt ($5.1 million in taxes) and additional principal payments on the County’s water debt ($2.5 million), a report to council explains.
Councillor Al Sacuta said he understood that levies were supposed to pay back debt but noted only $770,000 in levies was collected in 2012. He asked why $5 million of taxpayers money was being used to pay back debt.
Barry Woods, business service manager, said using taxpayer money is a temporary solution and said when the money from developers comes in, it will be used to pay back reserves.
“It is always the intent to put money on the debt when we receive the money from contributors,” he said.
Kent Robinson, manager of corporate services said a lot of development projects they expected to have seen start already have gone dormant.
In a previous interview he explained that the development industry has slowed considerably and a number of projects in various stages of approval did not go forward.
He said on April 30 that a new bylaw is coming forward to council May 28 to help address these issues and tackle how to better bring in levies.
Sacuta said he would like to see a tracking system to show how much recovery is coming from developers going forward.
Robinson the levy agreement will address that as well.
Last March, council discontinued the use of the current water and wastewater bylaw in order to create a new cost-recovery structure. The details of how the new structure will work will come before council later this month.
Councillor Margaret Bahcheli noted that the bylaw is contingent on development occurring in the county and wanted to know if staff thinks there will be more projects coming online this year.
“I think some of the projects that aren’t completed are waiting for an additional policy from the county,” said Byron Riemann, general manager for infrastructure and operations, referencing the new cost-recovery bylaw.
Other highlights from the audit include an increase in accumulated surplus at $430 million, up from 2011’s $387 million.
Additional revenue was brought in from net municipal taxes, which increased from $47 million in 2011 to $48.5 last year.
Other increases in operational revenue include a $15-million jump from $5 million in 2011 to $20 million in 2012 in a category called “other”. The report indicates some of that increase is because of a $1.6-million reimbursement from the City of Airdrie for Range Road 13 improvements, an additional $129,000 in oil well drilling tax revenue, $955,000 for construction of capital projects and a $305,000 performance bond.
Expenses also increased in 2012 with a jump from $600,000 to $1.5 million as the Bragg Creek water system is still not fully operational. Fire costs also increased from $7.5 million to $8.4 million due to $700,000 in increased wages and $300,000 for material usage.
The audit is available online at rockyview.ca.
