{"id":26439,"date":"2020-04-30T14:10:07","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T18:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26439"},"modified":"2020-05-07T18:08:41","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T22:08:41","slug":"budget-planning-will-address-financial-fallout-from-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/budget-planning-will-address-financial-fallout-from-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget planning will address financial fallout from COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The COVID-19 pandemic has left many people facing\nfinancial uncertainty \u2013 and this same uncertainty is being felt at Town Hall as\nstaff lay the groundwork for the 2021 Budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of the 2020 Budget process, Aurora completed its\nfirst-ever multi-year operating budget, which not only provided concrete plans\nfor this year, but a financial blueprint for 2021 and 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While this was seen at the time to be prudent financial\nplanning, one which would provide taxpayers with a degree of certainty, the\nCOVID-19 outbreak has significantly muddied the waters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are working on bringing forward a projection of what [impacts] COVID-19 will have for 2020,\u201d Town Treasurer Rachel Wainwright-Van Kessel told Council members at the latest virtual General Committee meeting where Council considered a detailed schedule of the 2021 Budget process going forward. \u201cA few of the things that are going to [have an] impact is the way we look at penalties on taxes for unpaid taxes [and we have] a report coming forward in June to see how we\u2019re going to manage that for the rest of the year. The other thing that is going to impact [the plan] is the growth. Right now, growth on residential that is already underway can continue for now, but any new growth has been stalled and has not started. That could impact our assessment growth, which will probably have more of an impact in 2022 over what would happen next year. These are some of the things we\u2019re starting to look at, the bigger items, and what we can do over the next couple of years to keep the tax levy at a palatable level.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2021 Budget Process will kick off on Tuesday, June 2,\nwith a public session allowing residents at large to have their say. As it is\nunclear yet if physical distancing measures currently in place will be loosened\nin any way by that point, members of the public will be invited to weigh in\ndigitally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have just started to consider what some of those\noptions could be,\u201d said Ms. Wainwright-Van Kessel. \u201cThe Finance Department will\nprobably be working very closely with communications to look at ways we can\nengage the public virtually because it looks like we\u2019re probably going to have\nto go down that route rather than having an open public session. We might have\nto look at ways to gather feedback through social media, through email, or some\nother method rather than an open session.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Responding to this tentative plan, Councillor Rachel Gilliland\nasked whether these additional options would impact the timing of the rest of\nthe schedule, which is expected to take place in earnest around the Council\ntable by October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGenerally, a lot of the feedback we get is from some of\nour cultural partners and organizations,\u201d the Treasurer said. \u201cThis year, with\nit being a very different year with the impact from COVID-19, we\u2019re probably\ngoing to get more feedback from some of the public, but we can probably predict\nwhat some of that feedback is going to be in advance. We do need to get started\nwith a budget process and start looking at what the impact is going to be for\n2021 and 2022 and see how we manage this going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should Council approve the budget schedule this week, the\nformal kickoff will take place on Tuesday, October 20, with additional sessions\ntaking place on November 9, 16, 21, 23 and 30, with Council approval targeted\nfor Tuesday, December 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, however, the Town\u2019s Operating Budget, which\nincludes the Town\u2019s tax levy as well as water and wastewater charges, and the\nCapital Budget will be considered together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOperating and Capital Budgets include elements which\nimpact each other with the most important being reserve management,\u201d said the\nTreasurer in her report. \u201cWater and tax reserves are funded accordingly from\nthe Town\u2019s tax levy and rate funded operating budgets. These reserves are used\nto fund capital projects in current and future years. A change to how much is\ncontributed to capital reserves will have a material impact on long-term\nreserve health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStaff are proposing to aim for a December budget approval. This timing ensures that a budget is in place prior to the start of 2021 and also ensures the budget can include the latest assessment growth information.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The COVID-19 pandemic has left many people facing financial uncertainty \u2013 and this same uncertainty is being felt at Town Hall as staff lay the groundwork for the 2021 Budget. As part of the 2020 Budget process, Aurora completed its first-ever multi-year operating budget, which not only provided concrete plans for this year, but a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Sr","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 10:22:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}