Ponoka County is feeling the squeeze, just like other municipalities province-wide these days, but chief administrative officer Peter Hall is optimistic about keeping projects and regional plans in place.
"We will be having a hard look at our budgets at the end of this month, and we will be fine-tuning some things there," said Hall.
"We are in a unique place here right now - I think the harsh reality is that everybody's finances are tight."
The education tax for Ponoka County has gone from $8.4 million last year, to $9.7 million this year, according to Hall.
The residential portion of that is $5.6 million (it was about $4.5 million last year).
"We did have some assessment growth in there, too (with) new houses, etc," he said.
The provincial budgetary increase on its own was roughly 5.5 per cent.
"At the end of the day, with our assessment growth, we've had a significant jump in education assessment that doesn't allow for additional roads (or) bridges to be built from our tax base," said Hall.
"People will see a difference on their tax bill this year as a result," he said.
Hall added other communities, including the Town of Rimbey, are seeing the same impact, but there has been room for adjustments that will keep growth moving forward across the county.
"Rimbey limited their mill rate increase to a reasonable number and we will be trying to do the same," said Hall.
"We aren't looking at significant changes there, because we also have tax growth based on assessment growth alone."
Ponoka County recently completed an audit. Hall noted that the county's financial controller Kelly Sperber's fine work led to a smooth execution of the audit as well.
"From my perspective, the audit was extremely smooth and without any issues," said Hall.
The net budget surplus was $2.4 million, and the county transferred some reserves around.
"There are plans there for that money, too."
The county designated $600,000 to fire reserves to purchase a new engine in 2027.
"So that will largely pay for that," said Hall.
The county has also designated $500,000 to pavement rehabilitation.
"We've got $1 million transferred from our surplus to our bridge reserve as well - $800,000 of that has already been spent - we completed a new bridge in the Hoadley area in January, so basically we are just carrying that money forward to pay for that this year," he said.
There was also $2 million in an Internet Enhancement Reserve which will be downsized to $1 million.
That extra $1 million will be transferred into a building reserve which would give the county the ability to work on various local buildings, or potentially be able to make some funds available for the Rimoka Housing Foundation.
"It gives us flexibility in that regard," he said, adding there has also been a small transfer to the general operating reserve.
"At the end of the day, I think we had a really good year, and we have saved money, earmarking it for projects near term. I'd frankly rather do that, than to ever look at debt financing for those projects," he said. "We won't do that. So it's not a bad place to be."
Hall said the county headed into the 2025 construction season in "pretty good stead."
"We've got a good deal of drilling activity out west, and that activity results in jobs and additional taxes that allows us to fund more projects, and build more roads," he said.
"It's good to see that. We've got a number of oil companies out west with significant investments going on. Residents haven't seen this much activity since the 1990s.
"So it's about maintaining balance, But certainly oil and gas are very important to our economy, and we try to make sure we maintain balance for the residents that live there along with the oil patch companies that are working in those areas," said Hall.
"We want to make sure everyone is communicating."
In other county news, council approved rezoning on a quarter-section west of Gull Lake from restricted agriculture to country residential.
"An outline plan was approved as well, with respect to a potential future subdivision of up to 29 lots. So that was a nice piece of business, and it's a really nice property," he said.
"It will be a good addition to the community for sure."
Currently, there are ongoing conversations with the Town of Ponoka and Rimbey regarding the communities' Intermunicipal Collaboration Framework which was competed five years ago.
"It's review time, and we are having good conversations with the two towns on that."
