“It’s a bit of a difficult process that we've all been through over a number of weeks,” said Mayor Richard Ireland at the start of the discussion.
The proposed budget initially called for a 16 per cent tax increase, but the business community lobbied council to reduce the increase and warned of the potential affects this increase would have on the community.
In response, council made numerous amendments to the budget during its Dec. 5 meeting.
These amendments included increasing paid parking revenue to $1.35 million, dropping the new recreation and culture programmer position, reducing winter contracted services and other amendments.
On Dec. 12, council removed the grounds labourer position, reduced the energy and environmental position to half-time for a two-year term, reduced funding for outreach program support worker position to $10,000 and reduced funding to the Jasper Artist Guild to $8,400.
All these amendments resulted in a $1,083,134 net tax increase, or a 10.61 per cent tax increase.
After applying a prior year over-levy of $147,000, the tax increase is lowered to 9.17 per cent.
On Tuesday, council considered more amendments to the budget, but none of them passed.
Recreation and culture programmer
Coun. Rico Damota pushed to have council reconsider the new recreation and culture programmer position, which was removed from the budget at a previous meeting where he wasn’t present.
The position was meant to attract events such as camps, weddings, conventions and trade shows to utilize existing facility space.
Damota argued this would not only be of value to the community but also help bring in revenue.
“I think the amount of money spent towards that position will benefit the community,” he said.
“It'll help get people into that arena we just renovated, our Activity Centre, our pool, Fitness Centre and I think those are important things.”
He specifically proposed using the $147,000 over-levy in the spirit of how surpluses are usually allocated – 50 per cent into general operations, 40 per cent into the stabilization reserve and 10 per cent into the housing reserve.
The funds meant for the stabilization reserve would go to the position, and the cost of the position would also be offset by $6,000 in anticipated new revenue and $10,000 from the contract position that would no longer be required.
Damota’s motion was defeated, but he tried to fund the position again by proposing the money come directly from the stabilization reserve.
Coun. Helen Kelleher-Empey, who opposed the motion, noted how many municipal facilities were still under renovation and wouldn’t be able to host large events for most of 2024.
“To support a position this year, I think, would be wrong.”
Damota replied that he wanted to approve the position so there was time to train the person and have them start booking events for 2025.
“If you want to start from scratch and then start getting things going, the momentum isn’t going to be there.”
Again, his motion was defeated.
Transit rolling forward
Council discussed whether they should remove the transit portion of the 2024-2028 capital budget but ultimately decided against it.
This would have included removing the fleet facility construction and the zero-emission bus purchase.
This decision would not have had an impact on the 2024 budget but would have affected the 2025 budget.
Kelleher-Empey proposed the motion as she wanted to see the costs of the project and a business plan before going forward.
“I'd like to see a transportation master plan delivered and then for this to come back to make a decision. I just don't feel I had the information to support this today.”
Damota supported the motion as well, saying they had already committed to an extra $6.4 million in funding this year for the recreation facilities renovations, which would take a long time to pay off.
Administration warned, however, that the municipality could miss out on $5 million in federal grants if the transit project was delayed.
Coun. Scott Wilson advocated for keeping transit in the capital budget since it wouldn’t affect the 2024 budget.
Coun. Wendy Hall said this was a low-risk way for the municipality to own a bus rather than renting one, and she was confident that more grants would come down the line.
Kelleher-Empey argued that a change in government could limit future federal grants and her decision was not a rejection but a deferral until council received more information about the costs.
Her motion was defeated, but council did vote in favour of a motion from Coun. Kathleen Waxer that any capital item for transit would have to be presented to council first for consideration.
External group funding
Damota moved to reduce funding to the Jasper-Yellowhead Historical Society by $25,000, but this motion was defeated.
Council had previously allocated $55,000 to the historical society for upgrading audiovisual equipment and preparing a space for their wildlife collection.
“I think there’s an opportunity for that group to get funding elsewhere for the space over there,” Damota said.
“We have contributed a lot of funds towards the museum and the historical society in the past, and we very rarely say no to him, and we're saying no to a lot of people today, including a position that I felt was really important to attract revenue to the community.”
Coun. Ralph Melnyk, who opposed the motion, said the historical society was asking for more than usual so they can get to a point where they can go for additional grants.
This would allow them to construct a building for the wildlife museum, which would generate additional revenues.
“The society supplied us financial statements indicating that with our grant, they'll still be in an operating net income of negative $86,000, so they're taking a risk as a society to get this particular facility open,” Melnyk said.
He added how the museum generates revenue through initiatives such as the Festival of Trees, the bottle return and volunteering for events.
“It's an active group, and hopefully they'll be able to create another tourist attraction for our area.”
Waxer also proposed giving $15,000 to the UpLift! Mural Festival for a video about Alex Kwong’s mural of Della Senz.
Waxer said this video would be shown at the Banff Mountain Film Festival and help raise the profile of Jasper.
Council previously reduced the funding for the UpLift! Mural Festival from $25,000 to $10,000.
Kelleher-Empey said there were other funding sources, such as Travel Alberta, that the group could explore.
Waxer’s motion was defeated.
