County gives back with in-kind contributions

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

Wheatland County discussed their annual credits that were given out in 2014 for in-kind contributions to organizations at the Jan. 6 council meeting.
The annual report concluded that Accounts Receivable Credits were split through inspection fees to the Strathmore Handi-Bus Association, Carseland Fire Department, Dalum Fire Protection Association, Gleichen District Fire Association and Rockyford Rural Fire Protection Association totaling $2,582.80.
“We do it every year and what ends up happening with that is CVIP inspections because they are commercial vehicles, they’re not owned by the county, they’re owned partially by the association. The county does all the CVIP inspections and does that as a free service for the fire departments,” said Alan Parkin, Chief Administrative Officer.
“So rather than sending it to a garage in Strathmore or Calgary, they just bring it here and our guys do that. We credit it that on our account to a donation in-kind.”
Wheatland County staff prepared the invoices for each association, in following a resolution policy, at the new rate of $93.92 an hour for the inspections.
Council also approved to have the same credit attached to the sixty yards of gravel, which was six loads, to the High Eagle RV Park in June 2014, which totaled $744.98.
The in-kind contribution also covered 300 tons of gravel that was dumped on 200 to 300 yards of land on June 2014, which was spread around the Strathmore Seed Cleaning Plant.
Parkin added that there would be more of these in-kind contributions coming in at the next couple of meetings.

 

Capital Asset Threshold Policy
It came to the county’s attention at a December council meeting that there was a demand for an increase in the capital asset thresholds in the Tangible Assets Policy for buildings and other structures to $25,000.
Wheatland council had advised staff to review thresholds that are in the policy already to see if a raise was appropriate.
The motion is to include fire equipment, apparatus and vehicles but council had to factor in that it is critical to choose a threshold that considers the size of the assets and not the total value of the assets.
“The only thing that was changed on that policy was in regards to buildings. Previously under that policy anything that was validated at $10,000 or over would be showing as a capital asset,” said Parkin.
“If it’s under $10,000 then it would just be an operating item. Let’s just say something’s worth $12,000, before it would’ve been shown capital item so we had to capitalize on our budget, now it’ll be on the operating budget.”
The addition of the fire trucks seemed to factor in to wanting that increase in the threshold.
“I think Rocky View is $100,000 and some of the other municipalities are $50,000. So we bumped it up a little bit and that was a recommendation from council when we took in a while back and added the fire trucks because we didn’t have fire trucks on there before,” said Parkin.
The change comes after five years of the current policy.

 

County Briefs
• Parkin had taken a tour at the Stella Jones plant in Carseland, who have 55 employees, and supplies product to Home Depots in Western Canada. He did the tour with Jim Laslo and Judy Unsworth and was impressed with the product line that is being distributed across western Canada in the factory.
• The office expansion project is 85 per cent complete and has a target opening date for May 2015. The contract costs with Blue Rock is at $1,400,685.26 for this project. A request for proposals of furnishing was set up on Dec. 8 and closed on Dec. 22 and a big thank you goes out to the project committee: Kim Sandbeck, Judy Unsworth, Dennis Klem and Michael Ziehr. Parkin and Ziehr did an exterior inspection on Dec. 18.
• Councilor Booth gave an update on the elected Strathmore Handi-Bus Association board for 2015. Alice Booth – President, Bruce Kaufman – Vice President, Florence Vander Velde – Secretary/Treasurer, Brian Grier – Fundraising, Jenny Schumann – Media Writer.