Election season is in full swing but voters beware...if candidates are promising to lower taxes some questions that should be asked are "what services do you intend on cutting to make that happen?" ...or "will the assessment of the village increase enough to lower the mill rate and if so where will that increase come from?"The Village of Breton has an annual audited financial statement prepared by an independent auditing firm that is available to all members of the public at any time. We also had an open house/town hall meeting with an easy to follow power point presentation that broke down the audited statements so that they were even easier to comprehend.
(12 people showed up to find out the facts and ask questions)The village council council has done capital planning for upgrading of roads and sewer lines, for developing new lots in the north-west corner of the village and improvements to other facilities. The problem is that emergencies seem to pop up like broken water mains and sagging sewer lines that need immediate repair and because of our limited resources we have to shift the plans to make the budget work.
Also in recent years with increasing intensity of summer storms it has become a huge priority to do storm water retention and diversion to keep the village from flooding. This is a huge undertaking and our administration/public works staff have been working with a contracted engineer to find solutions to this problem. This needs to be done effectively and efficiently because it is a very costly initiative. We have to ensure that diverting a problem in one area doesn't create a problem in another area. We want to try and come up with cost effective solutions and not go into debt like we were 20 years ago.
As of November 2010 the Village of Breton will be 100% debt free! This is a far cry from the situation we were in 1992 when we were struggling to keep afloat. Our administration staff consists of 1 full time CAO and one .8 FTE (4 days/week) admin assistant. We also have 1 full time public works foreman and hire summer temporary help for maintenance. We have an FCSS coordinator that is mostly funded by the province and also library staff that we receive 60% funding from Brazeau County for. In 1992 there were 3 full time administrative staff, 1 full time and one part time public works staff. Some larger communities have full time grant writers on staff but in Breton we do not have that luxury...we do the best we can with the resources we have available to us.
People of Breton have to realize that we will never have the same tax rate as Brazeau County... They have over $2,000,000,000.00 in assessment...Breton has $40,000,000.00...that is a huge difference! What we can do is continue to forge strong partnerships and cost sharing agreements to ensure that the county pays for their share of the services that their residents use in the village.
My hope is that the village continues to grow at a steady and sustainable pace. There are regional economic partnerships in central Alberta (CAEP) and also north west of us (GAER) the Grand Alberta Economic Region that we should be participating in. Membership in these organizations will expose Breton to opportunities to attract businesses and investors from all over the world. It will require several hundred dollars per year to become members and we will need to send representation to their board meetings. In past years we have declined membership in these organizations because no councilors had the time to represent us at the table. This is unfortunate and hopefully in the future this will change.
So citizens of Breton...come to the candidates forum on October 13th at 7:30pm at the Breton Community Hall...ask questions, chat with all the candidates and try to get a sense of were they want to take the village. But most important of all...go and vote on Monday, October 18th.
