The District has passed its 2022 annual report and Statement of Financial Information (SOFI) report.
Some interesting tidbits coming out of the report include: the District employs 79 people. Last year, they were able to secure $4 million in loans, up from a five year high in 2020 of $3.5 million.
There are 2385 properties that the District manages property taxes for.
The District saw a number of staffing changes, with the appointment of Jason Bradley to the role of Director of Operations & Infrastructure, Terese Finegan to the role of Director of Economic Development & Tourism, Lisa MacKenzie, Human Resources Specialist and Karen Curry to the role of Executive Assistant. Finegan has already left that position, with Jessie Olsen taking over.
The District gave out $708,000 in Grant in Aid and Fee For Service funding.
The District also had $58,047.51 in Permissive and Statutory Tax Exemptions. A Permissive Tax Exemption is an exemption to a group or organization from paying taxes for a specific period of time and is granted by bylaw. This includes not collecting $ 32,111.30 from the Tumbler Ridge Museum (because the District funds the museum), to not collecting $20.31 from the Snowmobile club, because it is a volunteer organization that works to promote the town.
A Statutory Tax Exemption is a property with a special category determined by provincial or federal law, and which the District has no control over. This includes places like universities, hospitals and, in Tumbler Ridge, places of worship.
In 2022, the District took in $16,897,133 in revenue. Most of that ($9,363,067) was in taxes, followed by $4,820,784 in Government Transfers, nearly $2 million of which is from the Peace River Agreement, and the rest of which are grants and other subsidies, including the gas tax.
Other revenue included sales of services ($1,032,350) and water and sewer fees ($1,017,200).
Expenses were $12,330,002, resulting in a net surplus of just over $4.5 million dollars.
Surplus funds are not just set aside for a rainy day, but are budgeted for large scale projects coming down the road, including repaving, replacing vehicles, rebuilding buildings—like the Fire Hall—sewer and water infrastructure and other major expenses.
We spent $147,784.39 on mayor and council. The majority of this was in stipends—$121,396.01. The rest was in covering expenses, mostly travel fees for conferences and the like.
17 employees made enough (more than $75,000) to make it onto the so-called sunshine list, or about the same as a mid-level employee at the mine. If you were to use the BC Sunshine list minimum of $125,000, only one person would be on that list.
The complete Annual Report and SOFI Report are on the District’s website:
www.districtoftumblerridge.ca
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
