Council Update
By Boundary Sentinel
During the recent Grand Forks City Council meeting, a number of items were discussed.
Here is a capsule look at some of the items addressed by council.
Financial plan
Council directed staff to implement strategies, ranked by priority, in the development of the second draft of the financial plan in order to provide a balanced budget:
- Include opportunities to offset both 2020 and 2021 operational and capital expenditures eligible under the COVID‐19 safe restart grants for Local Governments.
- Implement a moderate electrical fee increase to partially offset the 4.36% increase set by Fortis.
- Utilize current year contributions to reserves to fund current year capital projects.
- Include a moderate property tax increase
- Reduce the number of, and value of, proposed capital projects.
Early budget approval
Council approved two early budget requests relating to health and safety: roof replacement at the Public Works Yard as the current roof is systematically failing, and surveillance camera capital project to help secure City-owned properties from theft and vandalism.
Community Centre
Council decided to defer consideration of the community centre until the 2022 budgeting sessions due to uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic potentially affecting the proposed project, and the existing scope of the DMAF-related projects.
