Finances at City Hall in North Battleford are a well-publicized mess, but the city is on the road to turning things around.
That was takeaway from a presentation to city council members Monday by Steve Brown, director of finance, on the city’s 2018 audited financial statement.
The presentation was an eye-opener for council members, and seemed to be further justification for City Hall’s efforts this year to find efficiencies to reverse a downward slide in the city’s finances.
Administration has already been tasked with finding $500,000 in efficiencies following this year’s budget, and there have been staffing reductions totaling over $1.3 million as well.
The financial statement for the year ending Dec. 31, 2018, painted a grim picture of trends at City Hall over the past five years.
From 2014 to 2018, total expenses had gone up 13.1 percent, while revenues had only gone up 10.6 percent.
Revenues climbed from $37.3 million in 2014 to a high of $46.7 million in 2016. It has since slid back to $43 million in 2017 and $41.2 million in 2018.
Expenses have increased from $35.5 million in 2014 to a high of $41.7 million in 2016. It stands at 40.1 million in 2018.
The city does have an operating surplus in 2018 of $1,068,678 and a total surplus of $1,944,635.
Brown called that last number a “good number to have.” But it was still down about a half-million from a year earlier, from $2,457,873.
As well, both the operating and the total surplus are five-year lows and way down from the highwater marks in 2016 of $4.9 million and $5.7 million respectively.
Another concerning item was the appropriate reserve balance. It was $5.25 million, a drop of $2.77 million from the previous year.
Brown also showed the numbers for net financial asset position from 2014 to 2018. It stood at negative $22.7 million in 2014 but dropped to negative $25.2 million in 2017, only to move up to just under negative $24.5 million in 2018.
“That means the city’s financial liabilities exceed financial assets,” Brown told council. He also said if it wasn’t for an accounting adjustment made in 2018 due to the Killdeer land purchase, assets would have been down for that year as well.
There were a few key highlights for Brown. One was that the numbers “confirm some of the corrective actions” taken this year, in “terms of where things are going,” Brown said.
But by no means was the city in dire straits, he added. Had the city kept on going down this path for a number of years it would have been more challenging.
“It’s fixable 100 per cent, and we are on the right path for it, I think.”
Mayor Ryan Bater expressed his appreciation for the financial statement, which he said “paints a pretty clear picture about not just where the city has been financially, but helps us make decisions about policy to address where we’re going.”
“Since 2014 and I would argue even earlier, our expenses have been outpacing our revenues significantly, which means the city’s been on a path that’s not sustainable,” Bater added.
“And so this last year, as the city manager referenced at the beginning, we’re changing the direction of the city on a financial level, and a lot of that has required corrective action and a lot of work from the department of finance and city management as a whole.”
