City Adopts 10-Year Financial Plan

We really rolled up our sleeves here at the City, changed our entire financial plan. We became the first community in BC to go from a five year to a 10-year financial plan and also the first one to have our financial plan completed and adopted before the fiscal year began. Normally most communities will have it done in March or April to file to the province and it’s kind of like turning the tanker straight, if you don’t know how much money you’ve got, you can’t do anything so what we’ve been able to do by going to a 10-year plan and having our budget done before the fiscal year starts is we’re able to maximize our municipal finance authority borrowing capacity because we can put it into the five year plan. So when we’re doing major road repair or sewer or water infrastructure replacement, it’s mapped out and we put money in the bank which then means we’re better positioned for matching grants when they come up because we can show that we already have it in the budget. But more importantly is the staff can take a Christmas break and the first week in January start writing the design documents and the tenders so when the weather changes, like here we are in March the shovels are in the ground instead of not even being able to start your design work until the end of March.