Prince Rupert Council defers decision on proposed water, sewer and waste rates

Prince Rupert City Council has put off a decision on
proposed utility fee rate increases, asking for more
background on the topic from the City's Finance Office

A decision by Council on how much users of water, sewer and waste disposal services from the City of Prince Rupert will pay for the next for years has been put on hold, that as City Council seeks further information and guidance from staff on the issue.

The prospect of increases comes with the expiration of the current four year cycle of rates, with the City's Financial Officer Corinne Bomben providing her recommendations to Council at Monday's council session.

In her report the Chief Financial Officer had outlined the following proposed rate increase schedule over the next four years:

Solid waste will increase 2% per year

Water will increase 4% in 2021, and 2 percent for each year thereafter

Sanitary and Storm Sewers will hold at 0 percent for 2021 and increase to 2% for 2022 and beyond

Ms. Bomben noted that the water rate increase was required owing to the increased underground repairs that have been experienced.

Council members however did not choose to move forward for the approval of the rates on Monday evening, that after a short discussion from two members on the topic. 

Leading off the conversation was Councillor Adey who asked if there were any alternatives towards not putting in place the required increases.

In response, Ms. Bomben observed that the only route the city has was to go to surplus; noting that there was not a lot of money available in those surplus funds, reminding council that those funds are part of the City's user fee funding system.

The CFO then followed up on her comments for Councillor Adey with a review as to how the funding process serves the city when it comes towards the operations of those elements of the civic services.

"There is no grants for operating utilities, so we would probably have to drag into our surplus and we don't have a lot of surplus in many of our funds, the sewer does have some surplus, but we've been funding some of our capital out of that, in order to reduce and keep the fees down in our utilities. There really actually  is no other area for us to find other funds for it, it is a user fee based funding system" -- CFO Corinne Bomben

 In his comments, Mr. Cunningham noted that the City had just received two million dollars in COVID Safe Restart funding from the province, asking if any of that money could be funnelled into the utility funds to ease the pressure on the public for the future. 

Ms. Bomben noted that the provincial money had been received after the Financial office had completed their recommendations for the utility fund fees, she observed that much of that provincial money  from the COVID restart funding will be allocated towards the reduced user fees collected on the Airport Ferry, the Cow Bay Marina and the Transit services, all of which have all seen declines in use, she observed that whether any of that funding could be offset towards the utility issues would have to be determined.

Mr. Cunningham followed up that with a recommendation that Council postpone a decision to allow staff more time to determine how the provincial grant funding could be used and if a portion of it can be allocated towards the utility funding.

"I would think if we're having reduction in our fees coming in for our services, come of that money could be funnelled into the actual services to alleviate some extra charges for our citizens ... if we postpone this bylaw until staff can look in to that would that help in anyway."-- Councillor Barry Cunningham

The CFO observed that the city could postpone their decision until the next council meeting, to allow for some some time for the financial office to get some certainty on the option to use the grant funding for utility fee purposes.

Council members then voted to table the issue until the next Council session.

The full report for Council can be reviewed from the Monday night Agenda.

You can review the full discussion from the City's video archive starting at the six minute mark.  

 

More notes related to the City's Taxation regimen can be reviewed from our archive page here.

Further Background on Monday's Council Session is available from our  Council Timeline Feature here.

A wider overview of  past Council Discussion themes can be explored from our Council Discussion Archive.

 

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.