Wheatland County budgets holds steady

By Sharon McLeay Times Contributor

Wheatland council accepted the 2018-2020 capital and operating budget on April 3.
“Having an approved budget will allow for cost control and provide management guidance on funds allocated to specific departments,” said Brian Henderson, general manager of corporate finance for Wheatland County.
The budgeted tax revenues will increase by one per cent for residential and farmland properties, with all other properties seeing a 1.54 per cent raise.
Henderson said overall, the new budget had a less than one per cent change from 2017 and the overall net change actually decreased by $52,483.
Wheatland County Councillor Amber Link asked about costs for contracted services and whether the costs could be recouped. CAO Alan Parkin said some of the costs could be recovered through successful awards of grants from the province.
Councillor Tom Ikert asked about increases in the Gleichen water budget, as figures seem to be double from last year’s budget. Mike Ziehr, Wheatland County manager of transportation and infrastructure, said there were modifications for costs through the transfer of staff moving to the Wheatland Regional Corporation (WRC), and the amount also covered amortization and the costs for the Gleichen treatment and distribution system. He said the costs submitted to the county from the WRC would be discussed at the next Committee of the Whole meeting.

County reaches out to residents on road construction
The new Municipal Governance Act has included a public participation policy for decision-making processes for municipalities. In preparing for road construction, those parties affected by the construction will be notified and a landholder meeting held. The notifications and meetings will set out information interested parties may want to know, such as fencing, crop compensation and other actions that might be taken during construction. Councillor Ben Armstrong said they held meetings in the past, because it was very hard to contact all the parties involved and found the meetings definitely streamlined processes for the crews.

Waste transfer sites schedules changed
Waste transfer sites throughout the county will operate between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on the days previously open for business.
“The eight transfer sites within the county all have different hours of operation based on their location,” said Ziehr. “This can lead to confusion to residents using the different sites.”
He added that they are working on getting resident usage cards out to people, which will be required to use the county sites in the future. They hope it will cut down on unauthorized use of the facilities by people not living in county residences.