At its regular council meeting on April 14, Northern Sunrise County approved its 2026-29 Operations Budget and 2026-31 Capital Budget.
“Under the Municipal Government Act, municipalities are required to pass annual operating and capital budgets, and 3-year operating and 5-year capital plans,” explains Reeve Claude Rodrigue.
“Following the passing of the annual Tax Rate Bylaw on April 28, council will be sending out a media release announcing the passing of the budgets and the bylaw. Watch for that towards the end of the last week of April.”
Rodrigue says there are not any significant changes in this year’s budget, adding the majority of items are similar to years past. He does point out a rather large expense in the 2025 budget that was a result of bad debt.
“The variance in administration is due to bad debt expense ($2.7 million) relating to unpaid property taxes that was determined to be uncollectible,” he explains, while the County budgeted for nearly $2.5 million in expenses in this category, the actual expense was slightly over $5 million.
“The County only budgets $25,000 for this (bad debt) annually.”
Administration expenses include general operating costs, professional services, insurance and maintenance of the County’s administrative buildings and vehicles. It is budgeted at just under $2.7 million, in line with years past, with significant bad debt not expected.
Council has also planned for $3,643,986 in grants to other governments and community grants.
“This includes the intermunicipal agreements with the Town of Peace River and the Village of Nampa, RCMP enhanced position, support for various local and regional not-for-profits (Misery Mountain, Nampa Ag Sociey, Nampa & District Historical Society, Parc De St. Isidore Committee, Salvation Food Bank, STARS, plus many others), and operating funds for community halls within the county,” Rodrigue explains.
Finally, a notable change is the addition of $139,000 to emergency projects due to record snowfall and increased risk of overland flooding and washouts and a $208,000 addition to road maintenance.
“After the record snowfall in the first couple months of 2026, Finance and Transportation decided to revisit the 2026 budget to ensure the County had adequate funds budgeted to cover snow removal and deal with the increased risk of overland flooding,” explains Rodrigue.
“During this meeting, year to date spend for these budgeted categories were examined. Other considerations included historical knowledge and the current snowpack conditions and forecasts for the county.”
With the approval of this year’s budget, council will now be completing their final review of the Tax Assessment Bylaw during the April 28 council meeting. Rodrigue says after the meeting notices will be printed and mailed out to residents by April 30. Property taxes are due June 30 and property owners have until July 7 to appeal their assessment.
Emily Plihal
Local Journalism
Initiative Reporter