SUNDRE – A blend of excess revenue in certain areas with some modest cost savings in others landed the Town of Sundre in a comfortable surplus position despite some line items coming in over budget.
“We are approximately $400,000 better than budget in terms of the total (year-end fourth quarter financial) report,” said Chris Albert, director of corporate services, who was also acting chief administrative officer during the regular March 10 meeting.
The 2024 budget had forecast revenues of almost $4.06 million with year-end actuals coming in a little less than $4.33 million. Operating expenses had been budgeted at nearly $2.52 million with actuals recorded at $2.35 million.
Per background information outlined in council’s agenda package, as of Dec. 31, 2024 there was approximately $6.3 million in the operating accounts as well as roughly $4.6 million in restricted surplus accounts representing total holdings of almost $11 million.
With regards to the excess revenue, Albert said “a lot of that is outside of our control” and largely pertains to interest rates and tax penalties.
“We have a lot less control over how those numbers play out,” he said, adding individual departments are “the areas that we have a lot more control of whether we go over or under budget.”
Salaries are among the items that tend to fluctuate but have remained within a reasonable variance. Budgeted at about $3.714 million, salaries – which are spread throughout individual departments instead of lumped into one sum – accumulatively came in at $3.747 million, or roughly $33,000 over budget.
Contracted services are tracked as separate line items for each department for accounting purposes, he later said responding to questions.
“Because my financial records have to be as accurate as possible, I cannot in good conscience put contractor costs into a salaries line,” he said. “The auditors, they don’t like it.”
Touching on excess revenues, Albert said, “Tax penalties are quite significantly higher than budget, and still quite a bit higher than last year.”
Tax penalties had trended upward during the pandemic, as expected, while an industrial property also later incurred a “significant outstanding tax balance,” he said, adding the ensuing tax recovery process has brought those numbers back down.
“To end 2024, we are back to where we would expect to be with an outstanding balance,” he said, adding the municipality is no longer seeing as many instances of accounts accruing arrears.
“We’ re not seeing a whole bunch of new ones coming in, which is a good sign,” he said.
“With the 2024 ending balance coming down to that more normal number, we do not expect to see these large revenues in 2025,” he added, calling the current situation a “one-off.”
Investments are another variable that are largely out of the municipality’s control. But a boon in the budget materialized from having more than usual in the coffers.
The 2024 budget was built around expectations of having about $6.5 million in the town’s bank accounts with interest rates of roughly four per cent, but the municipality ended up with closer to $10 million in its coffers. That was largely the result of having yet to incur the payments pending on the wastewater treatment facility, he said.
“The lagoon funding is still in our account because we haven’t made those payments,” he said, adding that by extension generated additional interest revenue.
After all the work on underground infrastructure last year, the municipality is starting off 2025 with an average balance of about $7.5 million, he said, adding the interest rate is likely to drop a bit closer to 2.5 per cent.
“So going forward, this is another area where we are expecting the actuals for 2025 to come at or slightly below budget,” he said, calling excess revenues from both tax penalties and interest “anomalies for 2024.”
Among the other highlights Albert noted was the Sundre Fire Department’s revenues, which had a year-end overage of $134,048 with an original budgeted amount of $353,500 that ultimately came in at $487,548.
He attributed that variance to an existing agreement with Mountain View County that was renegotiated and updated after the 2024 budget was passed.
“The new contract actually does generate more revenue for the fire department from Mountain View County,” he said, adding there in 2024 was an additional $60,000 collected from the county compared with 2023.
Now that administration has a good estimation of the new revenues the town will get from the county going forward, the 2025 budget will be adjusted to reflect that, he later said in response to a question from council.
As well, he said the department’s record call volume also played a role in generating some revenue.
“Traffic accidents on numbered highways is something that we can collect back from the province,” he said, adding that was somewhat offset by salaries and wages that were almost $20,000 over budget.
“That really comes down to honorariums for the firefighters,” he said.
Another unanticipated cost savings manifested in reduced transfers to organizations under solid waste, which came in at $30,621 after originally being budget at $70,000, representing $39,379 in savings.
“They (the Mountain View Regional Waste Management Commission) have been doing really good things over the last year or two controlling their costs, so those costs don’t get passed onto us. So, that’s really where those savings come from,” he said.
The Sundre Arena also came in under budget courtesy of additional revenues amounting to $19,000 combined with cost savings of almost $29,000.
“Mountain View County, their recreation and culture funding did have a significant bump in 2024,” Albert later said in response to a question, adding a portion was allocated to the arena.
And although the gas department’s revenues were down with a year-end actual of $1.32 million after being budgeted at $1.49 million representing a shortfall of $172,207, cost savings largely offset that.
“Recalling to November and December of 2024, they weren’t cold, which is really nice but it doesn’t help out revenue. But that does offset with the cost of the gas,” he said.
Materials and supplies had been budgeted at $679,500 with a year-end actual of $550,265 yielding a savings of $129,235.
Following his presentation, Albert said the town overall was in a good position and council carried a motion accepting his report for information.
