Building permits pad surplus
Photo: Colin Dacre
The construction boom was a boon for the City of West Kelowna in 2021.
The 2021 audited financial statements will be presented at Tuesday’s regular council meeting.
It shows a surplus of nearly $15 million. That includes building permit revenue of $2.3 million, much higher than the budgeted $1.6 million.
The city had revenue of $83.7 million but expenses were only $68.8 million.
The 2020 annual surplus was more than $11 million.
A number of other sources of revenue also came in over projections including:
- Water service user fees, actual $13.56M, budget $11.15M. The increase is due to substantial growth, increased user fees in anticipation of debt servicing costs, and an increase in other revenue (latecomer payments and capital recoveries).
- Solid waste collection user fees actual revenue was $2.44M. Budget was $2.27M.
- Fire servicing agreement with WFN $2.25M, budget $2.18M
- Recreation and facility actual revenue $1.79M. Budget was $1.59M. Budgeted revenues were adjusted to a conservative amount due to new COVID regulations for 2021 and expenses were allocated accordingly. Actual revenues were greater than expected.
In his report to city council CAO Paul Gipps notes that due to the pandemic, budgets for 2021 were created in a conservative manner. He says that as regulations were lifted, revenues in some areas were greater than anticipated, in particular growth in development.
Most COVID-19 related expenses and losses in revenue were covered by federal and provincial grants.
Expenses were also closely monitored due to the uncertainty and Gipps adds that the city has completed 2021 in a fiscally strong position and increased the accumulated surplus.
