2018-2022 Financial Plan

FINANCIAL PLAN OVERVIEW

Some of the larger expenditures are discussed below:

Labour: This line reflects the financial impact of wage and benefit cost increases. Fire Department: The evolution of our Fire Department to include full time paid responders took place over many years. Costs continue to increase, though no additional firefighters are provided for until 2020. Policing: This line includes the cost for contracts associated with Police Services including RCMP, centralized dispatch services and regional initiatives such as an Integrated Homicide Team, an Emergency Response Team, Forensic Identi- fication, a Dog Unit and a Traffic Reconstruction Unit. The budget previously included the addition of six police officers over the 5-year life of the plan. The recommendation is to now reduce that to five police officers and use the savings to add to the civilian support staff. Library: We are part of a regional library system and so our costs are affected by a number of factors, including changes in relative service levels. For instance, if one member opens up a new library, some of the costs are direct costs to the member while other costs are shared by the entire system. The cost of the contracted service with the Fraser Valley Regional Library is expected to increase by about $85,000. Infrastructure Replacement: In 2008, Council approved a 1% tax increase to help maintain our existing infrastructure. The annual increase for the years 2013-2016 was reduced to 0.5% though this amount was supplemented by committing a portion of gaming revenues and the growth in property taxes due to the Town Centre Incentive Program to infrastructure replacement. Starting in 2017, the annual tax increase for Infrastructure was increased to 0.70% and this will remain through 2022. Additional discussion on infrastructure replacement is included on page 58.

Inflation Allowance: The inflation allowance covers over 1,000 items, amounting to almost $10 million in materials and services, for which increases are not specifically built into departmental budgets. An allowance of 2% per year for 2018—2022 is included in fiscal services to cover inflationary cost increases. Budget Allocations for Growth: Maple Ridge is a growing community. Each year, more and more roads and sidewalks are built, more boulevard trees are planted. All of these have to be looked after. In recognition of the additional work required each year, a portion of the new tax revenue from new construction is set aside to meet the growth demands. The table below shows the growth amounts included in this Financial Plan.

Item ($ in thousands)

2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

General Revenue Fund Fire Dept. Equipment Mtce. & Capital

50 50 50 50 50

Operations Department

65 65 65 65 65

Parks Maintenance

65 65 65 65 65

Corporate & Financial Services (CFS)

65 65 65 65 65

Software Maintenance

40 40 40 40 40

Public Works & Development (PWDS)

65 65 65 65 65

Parks, Recreation & Culture (PRC)

65 65 65 65 65

General Revenue Total

415 415 415 415 415

Water Revenue Fund - Maintenance

15 15 15 15 15

Sewer Revenue Fund - Maintenance

10 10 10 10 10

It should be noted that this allocation is subject to us meeting the growth revenue projections. One question that we are often asked is “ Why do the City's costs increase so much more than inflation ?” In asking this question people are often referring to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which has been around 2% for some time. The short answer is that CPI refers to the price change of a basket of goods that includes things like groceries. The purchases that the City makes are very different than those purchases that are included in the CPI basket.

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