MJ must use reserves to pay for extra snow-clearing efforts

MOOSE JAW — The huge dumps of snow that Moose Jaw has received this winter are forcing city hall to dip into reserves to pay for that cleanup.

City administration presented a fourth-quarter update during the Feb. 24 regular city council meeting, with the report containing information about the city’s revenues and expenses to Nov. 30, 2024.

The finance department said it was still working on its year-end process and didn’t have information to the end of 2024. It expected to present an unaudited year-end financial statement when it gave the Q1 2025 update.

“At this point, it is difficult to estimate the final year-end financial position as many year-end entries impact the final surplus or deficit that the city will end up with at year-end,” the report said.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

As of Nov. 30, the city expended 89 per cent of its snow operations budget, but it incurred significant costs in December handling several blizzards that pushed this area over budget for 2024, said finance director Brian Acker. Therefore, the city was forced to use up a major portion of the remaining snow operations reserve.

Acker noted that that reserve contains roughly $618,000, but since snow clearing operations for 2024 were over budget by roughly $350,000, that will leave about $268,000 in that account.

According to the report, as of Nov. 30, the city spent $1,264,342 on snow-clearing operations out of a budget of $1,416,885, leaving $152,543 left to be spent.

Revenues and expenses

As of Nov. 30, total revenues were $60,446,962 or 97 per cent of budget, while this area was expected to come in slightly above budget for 2024, which is “a positive for the city,” said Acker.

Expenses were $55,607,380 or 89 per cent of the budget, although it was difficult to project where the year-end expenses would finish since many other major money year-end journal entries needed to be made, he continued. This could have a significant effect on where expenses finish.

The public works division showed significant improvements with expense management compared to 2023, as the workshop and fleet areas sat at $1,218,776 in expenses by Nov. 30 compared to $1,972,835 in 2023, Acker said.

The improvement came in the fleet services area, which showed a loss on equipment of roughly $239,000 compared to $1 million in 2023, the report noted. However, this area will still come in over budget in 2024.

Meanwhile, the only other area of concern in public works was in roadway maintenance and repairs, which sat at 153 per cent of the budget, said Acker.

The report indicated that as of Nov. 30, that line item had spent $843,152 compared to the budget of $549,966, causing a deficit of $293,186.

With transit, the regular bus service’s maintenance expenses were trending above budget by 115 per cent due to increased costs, the report continued. Specifically, by Nov. 30, expenses were $608,049 and the budget was $529,495, causing a deficit of $78,554.

Furthermore, paratransit saw similar cost increases for maintenance and was 137 per cent above budget, the document added. Specifically, by Nov. 30, expenses were $166,159 and the budget was $120,955, leaving a deficit of $45,204.

The next regular council meeting is Monday, March 10.