ATHABASCA – Athabasca County councillors passed the 2025 operating and capital budget at their last meeting before the holidays, despite concerns from the table about poor practice.
During the Dec. 10 regular council meeting, councillors voted 5-3 in favour a motion to approve the budgets, which includes a reserve transfer to cover the county’s operating costs for the upcoming year. Councillors Brian Hall, Ashtin Anderson and Natasha Kapitaniuk voted against the motion, and Coun. Camille Wallach was absent.
The interim budget councillors passed won’t be the final draft — once administration knows the county’s assessment value and councillors have passed the 2025 tax rate bylaw, numbers can and will be adjusted to fix the $244,000 deficit that had half the table concerned.
Reeve Tracy Holland demurred when asked for a single highlight from the budget, pointing out a large variety of projects as successes, including the fire fleet replacement reserves, the Island Lake waterline extension, and firefighter pay as some of the good things council was prioritizing.
“There are so many enhancements, it’s like, where do you start,” said Holland. “Huge kudos to our administration.”
When councillors started budget deliberations this fall, administration had projected a surplus, but add-ons, including $190,000 for an Ellscott capping project and $127,125 headed to the Village of Boyle, ran the costs up.
“We regularly at our table talk about how our ratepayers and residents in the region are strapped, we see that data in the news, people are struggling all over the country with the escalating costs,” said Hall. “It’s important for us to set the example and work to tighten our belt. It’s irresponsible for us to not take some action and pass a budget with a projected deficit.”
A variety of attempts to correct the deficit were defeated, all by the same 5-3 split. A motion from Hall to pass a reduced budget and revisit the topic in January was defeated, as was a motion to direct administration to bring back ideas that would reduce the county’s spending by four or five per cent.
“I’m just not comfortable drawing from reserves to cover operating,” said Anderson. “We have such great capital funding requirements here, and it just doesn’t seem responsible to withdraw from reserves to cover that. I would like to see where we could balance out that budget without needing withdrawals.”
Athabasca County budgeted $35 million to operate in 2025 and a further $15 million will go towards its capital projects, including the replacement for the Colinton bridge. While no full road repairs are scheduled, the county will spend $1.3 million on shoulder pulls.
Four million is headed towards the year-by-year replacement of the county’s fire services fleet, and just under $200,000 will go towards the purchase of a new bus for the community transportation program.
“I totally agree that we shouldn’t be taking reserves out to cover operating, but there’s also negative $2 million in recreation so there’s funds we can move around,” said deputy reeve Rob Minns. “I thought we were all in the thought of moving this budget forward and having more consideration in the later months. At least we’d have moved the budget forward and had it in place.”
Councillors received demographic data for the county to help frame the decisions. As of the 2021 federal census, 6,959 people were recorded living in the county, and 3,605 residents are of working age. There are 2,580 homeowners, the median age is 47.6, and the median household income is $105,000, slightly above the provincial average of $96,000.
