Mayor’s Report

By Mayor Wayne Stetski

I believe in the concept of lifelong learning. Each day and every new experience teaches us and enriches our lives. As your Mayor, I work for you, so I want to share with you some of the rather unique but important things I’ve learned about the City of Cranbrook over the last two years.

For every dollar we pay in total taxes only $0.08 goes to municipalities, $0.50 goes to the Federal Government, and $0.42 goes to the province. That eight cents has to cover many of the services that are most important to us on a daily basis – water; sewer; roads; storm water management; police; fire service; parks; recreation; grants to support community groups, volunteers, the public library, the Chamber of Commerce, the arts; transit; garbage pick-up and disposal; replacement of infrastructure and airport improvements. This inequity is an issue across Canada, and it needs to change.

The primary way for municipalities to raise money to provide those services is through property taxes and fees. Cranbrook’s total city revenue for 2013 was expected to be $55,698,708. A home assessed at $300,000 pays $5.63/day for all services, with the highest cost areas being the services provided by Engineering and Public Works (20.8%), Policing (19.4%), Infrastructure Projects (13.7%), Recreation, including Western Financial Place (11%) and Fire Services (9.6%). Water, sewer, and garbage cost homeowners an additional $2.37/day. In total (includes RCMP and Fire) there are 171 staff working for the city to provide these services.

Property taxes equal services as outlined above. Every $200,000 that the city needs in new money results in a one per cent increase in property taxes. At times city councils will decide that a zero per cent increase, or even a decrease, in property taxes is the right thing to do, but here is the challenge – you have to reduce services and your infrastructure deficit (the condition of your roads, sidewalks, water and sewer pipes, etc.) increases. Engineering staff tell us that we are way behind on keeping up on infrastructure – about $107 million behind. Every city in Canada is in the same position – aging infrastructure that costs billions of dollars to replace. Can we do it on our $.08? No, which is why we need federal and provincial grant dollars.

Previous Cranbrook councils decided to begin addressing infrastructure problems by starting each year with an “automatic” one per cent increase in property taxes to improve roads (raised $783,734 in 2013) and another .75% to create an emergency reserve fund for replacing infrastructure. This is a sound financial practice that this council has supported to date, but it does mean that there is a minimum of a 1.75% annual increase in our property taxes before we even consider what other initiatives are important to Cranbrook. You can see our challenge!

We all need to do better in using our transit system. We cost share the bus system with BC Transit and you and I paid almost $570,000 in taxes in 2013 to keep the regular and Handi-transit buses rolling. This is an important service to our city, particularly for students, seniors and others who don’t own vehicles.

We have met several times with BC Transit to discuss service improvements and to request smaller buses, but have been told that our buses aren’t scheduled for replacement until 2019. I have asked staff to work with BC Transit to move that date up. We keep every dollar that is collected in bus fares (adults/college students – $2.25, seniors/students to Grade 12 – $2; Children four and under – free) so the best way for you to help is to take Transit in Cranbrook!

Unlike the federal and provincial governments, municipalities like Cranbrook are not allowed to run a deficit. That does not, however, mean that we cannot borrow money. It means that we need to be able to cover the payments on our loans within our revenue. The total amount we are allowed to borrow is set by the province – in our case we can borrow up to approximately $90 million. Our current debt (2013) is around $37 million, which means that we could borrow up to another $53 million (approximately). Our largest loans are for Western Financial Place (previously the Rec Plex), the public library building, the renovation to the Firehall and for our sewage treatment facilities. All long-term borrowing requires public consent.

Moving away from financial learning I want to finish this article with a big compliment to you, the people of Cranbrook. I knew you were great; otherwise I wouldn’t have run for Mayor. But I have learned first-hand over the last two years just what a caring, compassionate and generous community we all live in.

I attend over 100 events a year where I see fundraising goals reached, countless volunteers making a difference, and innovative ideas that move our great little city of 19,300 plus forward in so many ways.

There is an old African proverb that says, “If you want to go faster, go alone. If you want to go further, go together.” We are a city that has mastered the art of going and growing forward – together!

Mayor Wayne Stetski, City of Cranbrook

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