By Heather Ramsay--The numbers aren't final, but Queen Charlotte councillors were given an amended peak at the village's first year financials. The big news, said manager of corporate and financial services Debra Uliana at the Dec. 11 council meeting, is the village is well within the planned budget. The village has three budgets, all passed at the inaugural meeting just over a year ago. One is for the general operating fund at $1,138,887, another for water at $241,400 and the other for sewer at $171,700. The numbers have been crunched until the end of September, so she prepared a projection showing what the expenditures could look like by year-end of Dec. 31. Administration costs, along with wages and benefits are projected to be higher than anticipated, with wages in both the sewer and water budgets $13,000 over the budgeted $50,000. The general administration budget could be as much as $55,000 over the budgeted $325,000. The initial look at numbers suggests the village spent as much as $36,500 less on water system and treatment plant maintenance than expected and $10,000 less on sewer system and outfall maintenance. Once other figures are added in, the village is operating within the budgets adopted last year.
These budgets were created as generic budgets for a municipality that didn't exist, she says, so adjustments were to be expected. Now that councillors and staff are starting to work on next year's budget bylaw, the preliminary numbers will help. The budget figures will be finalized by the end of March. The 2007 budget must be passed in council by May 2007. The budgets are based on tax revenue and annual grants. The village also has several projects funded through other grants, not by the taxpayer. These include the Skateboard Park, the Stanley Lake water project, emergency planning, the Christmas fund and more.