The Thompson-Nicola Regional District (TNRD) has released its five-year capital plan covering 2024–2028, as approved during the TNRD board of directors meeting on Dec. 13, 2023. The plan outlines capital projects within the 2024 budget, as well as projections for the next five years.
The 2024 capital plan includes spending of $11,735,901, approximately $1.1 million lower than the capital budget in 2023. Funding sources outlined in the 2024 plan include money from reserves (56 per cent of the total), grant funds (35 per cent), and borrowing (eight per cent). Donations specifically targeted at rebuilding the Loon Lake fire hall amount to one per cent of the 2024 capital budget, noted the TNRD in a news release.
A separate utilities capital plan for 2024–2028 includes an expenditure of more than $4 million for water and sewer capital projects. Funding for TNRD utility capital projects comes from two sources: grant funds (58 per cent) and reserve funds (42 per cent).
The reserve funds for the TNRD utility systems can only be contributed to by the customers who use them, and funds must stay within each specific system, which means that capital upgrades with regards to TNRD utilities rely mainly on grant funding.
The capital plan budget differs from the operational budget in that it is more fluid, and fluctuates significantly each year according to the individual projects that have been approved.
Notable capital projects budgeted for in 2024 include:
• Pritchard water treatment plant ($6.15 million, which includes $4.74 million previously approved in the 2023 capital budget but not yet spent)
• Pritchard wastewater treatment plant ($2.15 million)
• Monte Creek fire hall ($1.55 million)
• TNRD Regional Fire Departments Next-Generation 9-1-1 upgrade ($1.5 million)
• Lower Nicola Eco-Depot building rebuild and new recycling baler ($960,000)
• Monte Creek fire hall pumper truck ($700,000)
• Clearwater Library upgrades ($350,000)
• Smith Pioneer Park improvements ($290,000)
• Blackpool Fire Rescue replacement wildland truck ($250,000)
TNRD board chair Barbara Roden feels that the 2024 capital planning process has significantly improved.
“This transformation has drastically improved transparency and clarity for costs of services, and also provides realistic objectives for asset management planning. With an approved capital plan in place to start the new year, the TNRD can tender large capital projects as early as possible and ensure best available pricing for services.”
Jill Hayward, the TNRD director for Area “O” (Lower North Thompson) said completing the budget was a lot of hard work and collective effort.
“Our TNRD 2024 budget involved many, many hours of board and staff meetings, including active discussion, debate, follow-up meetings, and finally an impressive coming together of our municipalities, electoral areas, and TNRD staff to bring together the numbers that are doable and will best serve our constituents, both for today and into the future,” says Hayward.
Usoff Tsao, TNRD director for Area “A” (Wells Gray Country) said he agreed with the chair’s comment that the TNRD finance department has done a tremendous job revamping the way the budget is presented with increase in clarity and transparency.
“I believe this capital budget is a prudent balance between using up reserves saved up from taxpayers and continuing to shore up ‘savings for a rainy day.’ As one can see from the list of utilities projects and the dollar values involved, rest assured that our TNRD staff continues to carry out a lot of work along side political advocacy to try to find additional sustainable funding streams from other orders of government.”
The Provisional 2024-2028 Five-Year Financial Plan was approved by the TNRD Board at the Dec. 14, 2023 board meeting. The plan will be adopted at the board meeting of March 21, 2024, once revised BC Assessment values are available.
To learn more about current TNRD services and budget expenditures for 2024, visit tnrd.ca/budget2024.
