At the regular Rocanville town council meeting June 3, the council unanimously approved the 2020 budget.
The council approved the 2020 Operating Budget as prepared with the mill rate to remain at 1 mill on the current assessment.
Taxes on all properties, residential or commercial, will remain at $1,700 with a $200 tax on empty lots.
“It’s great to have no tax increase and be in a surplus, especially with the Covid-19 situation having an impact on people,” said Mayor Daryl Fingas.
The total budgeted revenue for the Town of Rocanville in 2020 is $2,569,975.37 and the total budgeted expenditures is $2,555,401.69. The town is budgeting for a surplus of $14,573.68 in 2020.
The largest part of the town revenue is from its tax levy of $706,400 in 2020 with a total tax revenue of $893,772.78, including water and sewer and other fees.
With the projected increase in Potash Tax Sharing Distribution in 2020, the Town of Rocanville is set to bring in a total of $160,931 this year. In revenue sharing the town will receive $197,404 in 2020.
The Town of Rocanville has budgeted to receive $50,917 from the gas tax fund and $124,038 from the Municipal Economic Enhancement Program (MEEP) in 2020 and also expects to bring in another $268,693 from other conditional grants, giving them a total of $443,648 in conditional grants this year.
The town is set to put money towards sewer, street and sidewalk maintenance this year. They’ve budgeted $270,000 for sewer maintenance with $215,500 of that budgeted toward the main lift station equipment repairs, $100,000 for asphalt patching, $64,038 for slurry sealing, $5,000 for street paint, signs, and lights, and $5,000 for sidewalk maintenance.
“We knew roughly how much money was coming in and what expenses we had to pay out,” said Administrator Monica Pethick. “We have pulled a little bit from our reserve this year to balance our budget with some of the things we’ve had to do with everything going on (due to Covid-19), we had to play around with it a little bit more.”
Medical centre roof awarded
After discussions at previous council meetings regarding repairs on the medical centre roof, the council looked at two quotes at this week’s council meeting.
The first quote was from Mar-Don Contracting for $14,733.60 to install a metal roof over top of the shingles. The second quote was from Fine R Spray Insulation for $23,590 to remove the old shingles and install a waterproof membrane and a steel roof.
The council passed a motion to award the tender for the medical centre roof to Mar-Don Contracting.
Rink roof quote
There’s been a leak in the roof at the Rocanville rink for a while now and the council was brought a quote by Cory Woywada on the cost it will take to fix the damage. This is in the preliminary stages and was to give the council an idea of how much it could cost to fix.
The quote was for $16,400 from Fine R Spray Insulation, but no decision was made on the quote.
“There’s a piece of the roof between the waiting room and main room with a leak,” said Administrator Monica Pethick. “It’s been an issue for a long time.
“We’ve asked them to approach the RM as well and see if they’ll put in a piece and then we’ll put in a piece, and then they’d (the rink committee) have to find the rest.”
After some discussion of different options on the best way to fix the issue, the council said they will come back to this at the next council meeting.
Grad banners
The council gave Rocanville School permission to use banner hooks throughout the town to hang graduation banners.
With the current Covid-19 pandemic not allowing for regular graduation ceremonies this year, Rocanville School is looking for different ways to honour their graduates.
“The Town of Lumsden has pictures of all their graduates and they’ve been able to put them on banners and display them in the town,” said Administrator Monica Pethick. “They would like to do the same for Rocanville.”
The council was in agreement that this is a great alternative option to do something nice for the graduates and it will look good throughout the town.
Public works doing great job
With the maintenance work the Town of Rocanville’s public works team has done as the warm weather comes around, they’ve received plenty of positive comments says Administrator Monica Pethick.
They’ve been working hard between cleaning up the town, picking up yard waste, keeping up with the growing grass, and much more.
Both the community and the council are very happy with their work.
