Kaslo council, April 10: Talking budget
It was all about increasing efficiency during Kaslo council’s first Committee of the Whole budget discussion.
Chief Financial Officer Linda Tynan led council through the presentation, which addressed the usual items along with suggested additions to this year’s budget.
“It’s been a challenge – and we need to say that out loud – to get the budget together,” Tynan opened.
One of the biggest challenges was accessing appropriate records to ensure staff was working with accurate information.
“If you calculate the number of hours spent searching records during the last three months… it’s phenomenal,” she said.
Many of her budget suggestions were aimed at finding ways to consolidate, organize, and access information effectively.
One such suggestion was new computing software for work order management. With the software, invoices, project costs, and plans would be easier to track, and could be more readily shared with contractors. It could also help streamline the grant reporting process.
The initial license would be a one-time cost of $10,000, including training, with an ongoing yearly rate of $2,100. Tynan proposed that the one-time cost could come out of reserves, then the yearly rate counted as an operational expense.
Tynan would also like to see a records management solution, with a move towards digitization. There was an increase in the casual labour pool this year, particularly in finance, to get records up to speed. Staff has done well, but absences last year make it hard to keep up.
The Village used to have iCompass, a program for creating meeting agendas and minutes. However, it was too expensive and was dropped.
At the meeting, Tynan suggested pursuing iCompass again, and perhaps bargaining for a better price. Not only would the software streamline the creation of documents, but it could also serve as a repository of council’s decisions.
Tynan highlighted that a few grants are funding ongoing operational expenses.
“My one thing is: never use grant funding or reserve funding for ongoing expenses,” she said, “because not only do you have to cover it in full the next year, but also catch up with that incremental tax change.”
This will be part of CAO Robert Baker’s work, to create a long-term vision for ongoing expenses.
“A lot of items have been identified that are not going away, and they are not funded [by operations] at this point,” said Tynan.
Acceptable items for grant funding are strategic initiatives, FireSmart initiatives, and planning contractors.
Rachael Lesosky, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Valley Voice
