The city is projecting a surplus of over more than half a million dollars in its water and waste water budget.

General Government Committee chair Councillor Tanya Vrebosch says the figure of $560,000 is up to the end of June.

She cautions that emergencies can come up so its important to hold on to those funds until the final numbers are in for the year.

But she’s not against spending reserves and helping out the taxpayer.

“There’s never a shortage of capital projects that we can invest in but there’s also ways that we can look at re-investing the revenues back in to reduce the rates for next year’s water and sanitary sewer rates,” she says.

Vrebosch says the perfect example of holding onto reserves rather than spend the money halfway through the year is winter maintenance.

This year, it’s $800,000 over budget and the city has almost that amount in the reserves and there’s still more winter left later in the year.

Vrebosch says the surplus is higher than planned because of some unexpected good news.

“When staff does capital projects they sometimes do the work themselves instead of paying another party. When this happens there’s an internal transfer of revenue,” she says.

(photo by station staff)

Filed under: surplus, Tanya Vrebosch, water and waste water