The Regional District of Kootenay Boundary recently adopted their 5 Year Financial Plan. This saw a tax requisition increase of 5.5% across all included communities. RDKB Chair Roly Russell says they also just finished their strategic planning.
He says it’s a challenging process but he feels they did a good job:
“That’s always kind of a challenging process as a Regional District because it’s as if we’re running a strategic planning process for 65 different independent businesses, because every service we have is operated very independently in the sense of we tax for it independently and we can’t move money back and fourth….”
Russell says one example is solid waste, and using waste reduction strategies to reduce the volume of garbage going to the landfill.
He says last year’s flood had an affect on the 5 year plan, but in different ways than you might expect:
“For example we received a huge amount of extra waste at the landfill and so that changes our financial plan looking forward in terms of longevity at the landfill and everything else, so the direct costs maybe were covered, but the indirect costs they still show up some way or another.”
Electoral Area A is seeing a 6.90% hike. Area B has a .29% decrease. Area C/Christina Lake saw a 5.86% increase. Area D is on the high end of tax requisition increases this year at 10.47%. The West Boundary/Area E saw a 9.4% increase.
Russel says a new public engagement tool also helped gather feedback:
“It’s one of the ongoing challenges I think in local government, is how do we do a good job of engaging the public, and it’s certainly in my mind we have to go well beyond the traditional sitting around in a room together and asking people to ask questions, or answering those questions, so that’s part of our new communication strategy.”
You can find the engagement tool at jointheconversation.rdkb.com, or click here.