Prince Rupert Council calls Special Regular Meeting towards Financial Plan, Property Tax Bylaws progress

The path forward towards that 12.5% property tax increase will come tomorrow as Council meets in a Special Regular Council Session at 4PM to provide for their First, Second and Third Readings of the two financial documents.

Most of the Prince Rupert City Council membership (Councillor Randhawa the sole opposing vote) having approved of the 2023 Five Year Financial Plan and Property Tax Bylaw at the last City Council session of April 24th.

So it's likely the voting pattern won't change much sometime after 4 PM on Thursday.

The Notice of the special session also includes a report to Council from CFO Corinne Bomben which updates her notes from April 24th related to additional funding opportunities for infrastructure work.

Subsequent to the direction provided on April 24, 2023, staff were made aware of the opportunity to obtain additional grants to contribute towards the in-tandem sewer linear piping work that is considered a critical risk item in the Infrastructure Replacement Strategy. A condition of qualifying for this grant is for the City to commit to conducting a larger portion of sewer piping replacement in the financial plan. 

The total estimate for replacing water and sewer mains in the critical 26 kilometer section of the City is $205 million. $135 of this is for water and $70M is estimated for similar vintage and condition sewer lines. These must be replaced at the same time as the water mains since a failure of the sewer lines could also impact adjacent infrastructure and potentially cause the water system to fail. 

It would also be far more costly (and disruptive to the community) to excavate the same road system twice to replace these systems at different times.

Staff are working on raising funding from the Federal government and securing additional sources of revenues to minimize the financial impact of this critical work on the tax/rate payer. 

To qualify for the grants staff were made aware of, the budget includes the City contributing $40M for sewer main replacement at Table 11 of the attached. Presently the budget identifies debt as the source of funding which would be repaid through utility fees, however staff are looking to reduce this debt requirement through new revenue streams. 

Should the attached Five Year Financial Plan bylaw pass, the borrowing bylaw process will begin with more information available for Council and the public to consider. The borrowing bylaw process includes a requirement for public authorization to borrow for the sewer and the design works necessary to proceed with critical infrastructure replacement.

The Full report, which you can review here, provides expanded information on both the Five Year Financial Plan and the Property Tax Bylaw, including notes on the money collected for both North Coast Regional District and Northwest Regional Hospital District.

In addition to their work on the Budget, City Council will also held another Closed Council session, the details towards that can be reviewed below:

A review of the City's Budget process for 2023 can be reviewed here.

More notes of interest out of City Hall can be found through our archive page.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.