In what one St. Albert councillor describes as a "win-win" scenario, the city is moving toward borrowing $3.75 million so it can receive a $1.25 million grant.
On July 4, council unanimously passed first reading for a borrowing bylaw to borrow some money from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), which council heard is required for the city to receive the corresponding grant. The FCM is a national advocacy organization that represents over 2,000 municipalities, including St. Albert. The city will borrow the $3.75 million from FCM and the organization will kick over a $1.25 million grant.
The city secured the grant through the FCM's Community Building Retrofit Program for the renovations and repairs nearly completed on Fountain Park Pool; however, a stipulation of the funding is the city must take out $3.75 million in debt through the FCM, a report included in the July 4 meeting agenda said.
“It is important to clarify that administration is not requesting additional dollars or budget increases to (any) projects,” the report said.
Coun. Ken MacKay said the situation was a "win-win"during the July 4 council meeting.
Coun. Wes Brodhead said he didn't see any reason not to support the borrowing bylaw.
“I can't imagine anybody in St. Albert not saying 'good job,'” Brodhead said. “We've got $1.25 million here to offset some of the costs that we have, and there was some hoops to jump through in order to qualify and the (finance department) brought a reasonable plan in order for us to do so.”
As the city has multiple projects underway or soon to be underway to be funded through long-term debt, administration is recommending the $3.75 million debt be taken out to partially fund the renovation and minor expansion of the St. Albert RCMP detachment. Council approved a $7.5 million borrowing bylaw for the work late last year.
Administration's report says although the borrowing bylaw was approved nearly seven months ago, the city has yet to borrow any of the funds.
If the $3.75 million FCM borrowing bylaw passes second and third readings, which won't be debated until later this summer, the report to council said the grant would be applied against the $17.4 million budget for the Fountain Park Pool renovation, which was funded through the city's repair, maintain, and replace (RMR) budget.
Therefore, the $1.25 million grant would allow an equivalent amount already included in the RMR budget to be applied to other projects.
“As this would reduce the debt requirement on the debt-funded (RCMP detachment expansion), there would be no change to the overall debt level and operating budget,” the report says. The FCM debenture would be paid back over a 10-year term.
Coun. Sheena Hughes said she feels the borrowing bylaw isn't contentious and expects complete public support.
Hughes put forward a successful motion directing administration to disregard the city's council-set policy that all borrowing bylaws must be advertised for 60 days before council can complete second and third readings, in order to give residents time to voice concerns.
Because the motion passed, council will only need to wait the mandated 29 days following the first time the borrowing bylaw is advertised in the Gazette.
“The intention of that longer period was to allow the public to have (a chance to provide) feedback if we thought that they might want to have that (opportunity),” Hughes said. “But I don't see anybody contesting both the size of this or the impact that we're trying to achieve.”
“I really don't think that there's a reason we need to delay this any longer than necessary because I feel like we have the public's support on this,” she said. “It's not going to affect them whatsoever as far as taxes go, and it just actually gives us more money.”
