Regional District begins budget deliberations
By Abigail Popple, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, RMG
The Regional District of Fraser-Fort George board of directors met last Friday, January 24th, to begin discussing the District’s 2025 budget. Directors approved the budgets for region-wide services such as waste management and 9-1-1 response, and sub-regional services such as building and fire inspection services in electoral areas.
District staff proposed a 5.58 per cent increase in tax requisitions to cover these services, which total roughly $48.5M. Despite this, taxes may remain the same in McBride and possibly decrease in Valemount, according to a requisition analysis of the 2024 and 2025 budgets. This is because the assessed value of property in Valemount has fallen an average of 1.35 per cent, and has only slightly increased in McBride at 6.03 per cent. However, property values in Electoral Area H have increased 21.03 per cent since last year.
CAO Chris Calder and General Manager of Financial Services Sarah White presented these numbers to the board and outlined the District’s largest expenditures contributing to the increase. A good deal of the increase can be attributed to inflation and increased operating costs, Calder said.
“There are a number of objectives that are utilized when determining requisition… having awareness of inflationary pressures, which have ebbed and flowed over the last few years, [and] being sensitive to the ongoing impacts of economic uncertainty and recessionary pressures,” Calder said. “We’re keenly aware of how that could impact us and the amount things cost. We want to make sure we do not create an unsustainable structural deficit.”
However, much of the increased cost is also due to projects set to be completed this year, according to White. For example, the Dore River Erosion Mitigation project began construction this month – while the project is being funded through grants and does not affect requisition, its over $2M cost was included in total expenditures.
White added that the proposed 2 per cent increase in staff remuneration and a remuneration review for directors in December 2026 also contributed to expenditures. Additionally, the 2025 budget proposal includes a net addition of six full-time positions, and the District anticipates hiring three more full-time positions in 2026 and one more in 2027.
According to Calder and White, staff took steps to avoid requisition increases while preparing the proposed budget.
“There are ways to offset requisitions… that includes things like grant funding, tipping fees and other user fee increases, reserve usage, and any potential cost savings,” Calder said.
Some directors were concerned about the prospect of raising taxes for their constituents. Electoral Area H Director Dannielle Alan said she has seen taxes steadily rise over the past few years.
“Regardless of the political situation, we’re going to see increasing costs due to climate change, global unrest, supply chain shortages and disruptions, et cetera,” Alan said. “I’m fully in support of staffing up and fully in support of that little bit of a growth period this year. But what are we doing to future-proof those requests?”
Alan added that requisition increases will disproportionately impact seniors and other people with fixed incomes.
“The work continues to combat those increases,” Calder said. “Our plan going on five, six years is to have similar increases to this year. However, there’s work that can be done to try to mitigate that. We do think that’s very possible.”
Next month, directors will discuss budgets for local services such as water supply in certain parts of the district. The board will adopt the District’s five-year financial plan bylaw in March.
