YORKTON - What to do with a surplus of $2.4 million?
That is a question most of us will never have to answer in our own lives, but it is one that Yorkton Council kicked around at its Committee-of-the-Whole meeting Monday.
Thanks to increased interest earnings, and when combined with the prior ‘rainy day fund’, much of which is from the COVID Safe Restart funding, the City's surplus accounts is sitting at $2,404,590, reported Ashley Stradeski, Director of Finance with the city at the Committee-of-the-Whole meeting Monday.
That’s a sizeable amount of money that the city has which is not in a reserve account dedicated to a particular upcoming project.
That is what a ‘rainy day’ account basically is, a fund which has no particular end purpose, but can be drawn upon to pay for unexpected expenses.
Those unexpected expenses might be to cover off losses should the city find itself in a deficit at year end at some point – a situation which by provincial regulation is not allowed.
The fund can also be drawn upon to pay for things that come up through the year that are not budgeted for. Those things might be a project Council simply decides is good to move forward too when the idea comes up, or it could be to help fund disaster situations from huge snow removal costs, to unexpected rainfall flooding, to catastrophic infrastructure failures.
When you start to consider situations such as the water main break which occurred recently in Calgary, the $2.4 million would not extend too far in dealing with a similar situation should it occur here.
So it’s not surprising that Stradeski when asked directly by Mayor Mitch Hippsley how much Council should leave in the rainy day fund, the director of finance’s answer was $1 million.
Of course there is no actual reason to spend any of the money – considering a new hospital is one day going to be a reality and that will be a big non-traditional municipal cost -- having some added reserves to draw on would be useful.
But it is near human nature that when you find yourself with some ‘extra’ cash you want to spend it before it burns a hole in the proverbial pocket.
The question is where to invest the dollars?
Administration gave Council a list of potential projects that in its entirety would chew through the surplus in a hurry.
Members of Council added more project ideas and it soon became apparent no consensus was going to happen Monday as noted by Councillor Ken Chyz stating, “I don’t think we’re going to come to any conclusions.”
That’s actually a good thing.
There is zero need to rush spending the money.
And, there are municipal elections only a few weeks away now, so maybe the where to spend question should be left to the new edition of council with whatever fresh ideas it might have.
The positive is, is that the city has a significant rainy day fund that can do many positive things for the community, but careful planning on just how is prudent.
