St. Clements residents were invited to share their thoughts on the RM’s financial plan at the public hearing that took place at the municipal office on May 6.
The meeting started with a welcome from St. Clement’s Mayor Debbie Fiebelkorn, who then turned the meeting over to the RM’s CAO Deepak Joshi to make the presentation.
“This is our financial plan that has already been presented at an open house earlier last week, and now we’re moving forward with a public hearing for this financial plan. This is the 2025 financial plan, which enables us to manage our expected growth, infrastructure, and requests for services, while keeping our tax rate at stable levels and protecting the environment. The Financial Plan also takes into consideration the unexpected challenges the municipality may face due to the uncertain times we are presently encountering,” said Joshi.
He explained that when the latest council was elected, the RM’s strategic plan was reviewed and a vision to create a welcoming diversely growing community, supporting safe lifestyles for all ages to live, recreate, and prosper was created.
Some other considerations for the RM are that they are a growing municipality and that growth needs to be managed. Joshi explained that demands for increased service levels, with increased responsibilities are placed on the RM because of this. Additionally, the RM faced the challenge of provincial legislation limiting revenue growth.
“As previously has been reported, population growth estimates were conservatively based on the 2021 census, which showed 6.5 per cent growth that could mean over 8000 additional residents by 2036,” said Joshi.
He then went on to outline the RM’s goals from their strategic plan, which are to: develop a comprehensive plan for roads drainage, water and waste, keep costs affordable for ratepayers, have targeted sustainable growth, anticipate furture need in amenities and services focusing on recreation and key destinations, and build diverse, resilient and sustainable communities.
“As to the first goal, which was a comprehensive plan for roads, drainage and water. This year, the financial bank continues to support the commitment and funding for the hard surface roads of one mill rate per year. This year, in addition to the one mill rate per year, an additional one per cent is being proposed for the next 10 years to develop a sustainable road plan, with, at the end of 10 years, two mill rates per year devoted directly to hard surface roads in the RM. The specific projects for each year for the hard surface roads is funded from this commitment, and this allows the RM to develop a sustainable plan and asset management associated with all our hard surface roads in the RM. In 2025, we will be continuing with 1.1 mill rate, which translates to about $1.2 million or exactly $1,233,357.40,” said Joshi.
Major road projects that are planned for 2025 are portions of Rebeck Road, Quarry Road, and a portion of Donald. There will also be traffic safety improvements for East Selkirk. Additional plans that fall under this category are also an increased drainage operating budget for brushing, an increase for grass cutting in ditches, and increased budget for gravel road maintenance.
The RM has also been working on its South St. Clements regional utility infrastructure as part of a multi-step process for some time now. This year, they plan to complete phase 3.
Additionally, this year they will be implementing the expansion of the Libau Class 1 Regional Landfill through the development of an additional landfill cell. Joshi explained that this landfill supports not only St. Clements but other regional areas and it’s currently filling up.
“The new cell will enhance the landfill’s capacity and process, which is 10,000 tons of annual waste, while also protecting the environment, as well as leachate management and modern drainage systems that aren’t necessarily done in lower level landfills. So, it’s better for the environment. An application is also made for this particular project with the Manitoba Grow Grant application, and it was approved for 50 per cent funding again, and so a $4 million project is only going to cost the RM $2 million this year,” he said.
The next goal that was mentioned was affordability. Joshi said that now that phase three of the South St. Clements regional utility infrastructure is going to be complete, they are planning to do a master utility rate study, which could make these rates more affordable.
Also, reassessments in the province meant that the RM has looked at its mill rate.
“There’s a reassessment throughout the entire province, and with that, many of the municipalities outside of Winnipeg have had significant increases in assessment rates. With that, council, we re-examined the mill rates, and this year, they will be reducing the mill rate 13 per cent from 10.4 to 9.1. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that that is going to reduce taxes. What indeed that does is it helps to offset those tax dollars,” said Joshi.
Some things that Joshi said that the RM had to keep in mind were that there are risks associated with tariffs and that the RM, like its fellow RMs in the region, has also experienced inflation. Because of this, he says the RM is taking a conservative approach.
Joshi then moved on to talk about what taxes in the RM pay for.
“The distribution goes to different areas, such as public health, economic development, environmental health, which is basically waste management, the landfill and so forth. Transportation Services, which is all our gravel roads, park service roads, snow clearing, dust control, all that work. Protective services, as you can see, is a fairly significant part of the budget as well and then general government services, which includes funding for various services. And then, we have fiscal services, it’s a large portion of it, but that is where the RM takes taxes and then allocate them into various reserves, as well as receiving money from other sources, and that is used to be able to pay cash to capital so that we’re not borrowing for heavy equipment and fire services and large costs. What it is, is our setting up various reserves in order to be able to save money and keep the costs in the RM as low as possible,” said Joshi.
He explained that municipal taxes are only a portion of the total taxes that residents pay and that in St. Clements, 42 per cent of taxes are municipal taxes and 58 per cent of taxes are educational taxes.
Joshi next discussed how the RM of St. Clements fares when compared to other municipalities in the region, which is viewable in a chart in his presentation. Overall, Joshi said that the RM was at a very competitive level.
“It’s not only just about taxes, it’s also cash flow management and making sure that you’re efficient and effective in your cash flow,” said Joshi.
He explained that the RM hasn’t had to rely on going to the line of credit since 2020, but they’ve been steadily doing better cash flow management despite there being significant projects in the RM.
Joshi then moved on to discussing how the financial plan reflects the goal of sustainable growth.
One aspect that Joshi mentioned that they were looking at in this area is a building bylaw update. He said that the East Selkirk Water treatment plant upgrades have been critical to help expand growth. They are working with Red River North Planning and supporting industrial park development. He said that seniors housing opportunities are being explored and actively marketed, and marketing some of the RMs surplus land selectively and strategically for purposes of growth and the right kind of growth that the RM is looking for.
Joshi then moved on to discuss how the financial plan anticipated future needs.
“We’re evolving amenities and services and preparing for future needs in our changing communities, which is looking at investing more dollars in destination areas such as Grand Marais and Lockport. We’ve allocated funding available to those areas so that we can support the local businesses in those communities. We’ve also looked at expanding those services in those areas with partners. We’re looking at working with our regional partners to develop a recreation master plan,” said Joshi.
Some other aspects of this are creating an inventory of natural and heritage assets, increasing capacity within the RM for year-round programs for all ages and enhancing and promoting water access.
Some things that they are doing to make these priorities actions are: supporting and advocating for community grants, opening the St. Clements Activity Centre, contributing to the recreation reserve and allocating funds to the identification of a boat launch.
The final goal was building diverse, resilient, and sustainable communities.
Joshi discussed how they are trying different ways of communicating with residents to find ways to get information about the RM both out there and make it more accessible when people are looking for it.
Joshi then explained the numbers in a bit more detail, which residents can view on the online presentation if they would like a more general explanation and the financial plan itself for a more detailed version.
“This is being recorded on Zoom, so our residents have flexibility. What we’ve found over the years is that sometimes people aren’t able to attend these meetings, but they do observe and play back. We’ve seen that because we can see the accounts and downloads that are happening. So, people are watching more and more of our council meetings, as well as our budget meeting. And, questions can be mailed into the RM, and our staff will diligently try to answer every question that comes in. Along with the Zoom is the recording that’s been done through our regular recording of all our council meetings, and so, all that information can be used to figure out what I’ve been saying. But as you can appreciate, I’ve been talking for about an hour, and some people don’t always like to listen for an hour, especially listening to me. And so, along with that, what we’ve also done is that we’ve also, and I’m just going to share this for a second so that everybody ca see, is we also created an AI video for the RM that will also be posted on our website starting tomorrow. And what this does is goes through the same explanation,” said Joshi.
The AI video is also just over 7 minutes long, and Joshi explained, covers about the same thing that he covered, but in less time, as he knows people lead busy lives.
A recording of the 2025 financial plan hearing presentation is available on the RM of St. Clement’s YouTube channel at www.youtube.com and that recording as well as the accompanying presentation and the AI video is available on the RM of St. Clement’s website at rmofstclements.com/local-government/finance/financial-plan.
The financial plan presentation concluded and the meeting finished with a question and answer session.
