Westlock County councillors are unhappy with the Westlock Foundation’s requisition request for 2013 despite knowing it would be considerably higher than last year.
The requisition was brought up briefly at the March 26 council meeting, but was not discussed at length, said reeve Charles Navratil.
“We knew it was coming because our people (on the foundation board) had told us all along that our requisition was going to be high this year,” he said.
For 2013, the foundation has requested $1,187,005 from its four member municipalities. As the county is responsible for 54.86 per cent of the foundation’s funding, county taxpayers are on the hook for $651,199.37.
That number is approximately double what county taxpayers had to pay last year, Navratil said.
Even though they knew it was coming, that doesn’t diminish how upset he and his fellow councillors are at the actual dollar figure.
“We’re definitely not happy with the high requisition,” he said.
Part of the reason Navratil is so upset is that he feels the $1 million loan the requisition is meant to pay down was taken out in the wrong way.
The loan was necessary, but he said it should have been an addition to a $7 million loan the county took out on the foundation’s behalf earlier in the building process, instead of a standalone loan.
Had it been taken out then, the loan would be at a lower interest rate and could be paid off alongside the other $7 million.
Unlike the town, which budgeted for a small increase in the foundation’s requisition, Navratil said the county doesn’t forecast what it could be asked to pay.
Instead, the county waits until it receives the requisition amount and then factors that number into its budget before issuing its tax notices.
Navratil added knowing the requisition was going up by a significant amount played into how the county put together its budget and how it was going to change its property tax rate.
“That’s why we tried to stay with no land tax increase in the county this year, because we knew our requisition was going to be higher,” he said.
The requisition more than doubled in order to speed up paying down a $1 million loan the foundation took out during the construction process when it became clear the Pembina Lodge expansion would not open on time, explained foundation chair David Truckey.
“In essence we’ve shortened our loan payments up from what they were going to be,” Truckey said, explaining the goal is to pay off the $1 million in two years instead of three.
For how much longer the requisitions will need to be increased to reduce the foundation’s debt is unknown, he said, but it’s not expected to be very long until the requisitions return to the amounts they had been prior to this year.
“I am optimistic that it will stabilize downward in the next couple years, but we knew coming into this year that we were going to have higher than normal requisitions,” Truckey said.
Regardless of how much the requisition is, Truckey said it is a financial burden for those who have to pay it.
“Obviously nobody want to have those big requisitions,” he said. “It’s difficult for our member municipalities. It all is a lot of money to our ratepayers in the member municipalities.”
There are four municipalities that contribute the funds to keep the Westlock Foundation running — the town, Westlock County, the Village of Clyde and the M.D. of Lesser Slave River.
The town is expected to cover 30.12 per cent, or $357,573.05. Clyde is on the hook for 1.71 per cent, or $20,315.75. Lesser Slave River’s share is 13.3 per cent, representing $157,916.24.
