2022 Budget

The actual costs are not yet finalized for 2021. This timing is such because the District of West Vancouver received the $5 million COVID‐19 Safe Restart Grant from the Province of BC in late 2020. Funding remained unused by the end of 2020, and so there was no schedule provided in the 2020 Annual Report. 

Funding from the grant was allocated in 2021 (as shown in Appendix D of the February 24, 2021 Council Report for the Proposed 2021-2025 Five-Year Financial Plan Bylaw No. 5111, 2021). 

The annual audit is underway now and a schedule showing the actual expenditures will be included in the District’s 2021 Annual Report.

Community Amenity Contributions (CACs) are voluntary in-kind or cash contributions provided by developers. They are provided when Council grants increased development rights through zoning. The growth from development often leads to a demand for community amenities and the contributions are a way to secure these additional amenities. In-kind CACs provided by the developers to the District may include items such as community centres, parks, open spaces, public real improvements and even childcare spaces.

CACs received in the form of cash may be designated for specific purposes, in which case they are held to be spent only for these purposes. This could include such things as a contribution to improve a specific park or playing field, to provide support for District housing initiatives, or to provide for public art.  These are called restricted CACs and are accounted for separately from unrestricted CACs.

When the District receives unrestricted CACs, 1.00% of the funds are allocated to the Public Art Reserve Fund to support the provision of public art and the remaining funds are allocated 50/50 to neighbourhood-serving and community-serving projects. This allocation is as per the Community Amenity Reserve Fund Bylaw No. 5067, 2021. Neighbourhood-serving projects are for amenities expected to be used and enjoyed primarily by residents of the surrounding neighbourhood. Community-serving projects are for amenities expected to be used and enjoyed by all residents of the District.

A Council resolution is required to appropriate funds from the CAC reserves and sometimes these spending decisions are made in closed meetings to protect procurement processes. 

A reserve schedule, which shows the CACs balances, is included in the quarterly financial reports that are posted on the District’s website. In addition, further information on reserve funds can be found in the notes section of the Annual Report each year

In 2021, the District received $845,468 in CACs, in which $273,000 was restricted and $572,468 unrestricted. There are projects committed from CACs but the 2021 project expenditure amounts are not final yet pending completion of the annual audit. The table below is a preliminary summary of the CACs reserve balances as at December 31, 2021.

For further details on the CAC contributions, uses and committed project listing, please see this PDF.

The expected date of completion for the Ferry Building restoration is April 2022. This timeline might be subject to change due to the impact of COVID-19 on supply chain and work crews.  

The total approved budget for the Ferry Building Restoration project is $3.2M. The project is co-funded by the District and the federal and provincial governments. The Government of Canada is investing $1M through the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program’s Community, Culture, and Recreation Infrastructure Stream (CCRIS), and the Government of British Columbia is contributing $840K. Council approved a maximum of $1.35M in additional funding for the Ferry Building Restoration project.

To date, expenditures for this project total $1.9M. When complete, the total project cost could be as much as $3.2M.

Additional information on the Ferry Building Restoration project status, timeline, and funding can be found at http://westvancouver.ca/ferry.

As part of the arts facility planning process, community engagement took place in May and June 2021. The engagement considered two potential sites to build a new replacement arts facility. A total of $26,000 was spent in 2021 for the site selection community engagement, which is now complete. 

The community engagement results indicated a split opinion on the two sites, and also raised raised several questions and concerns about many aspects of the project.  As a result, on July 26, 2021, Council did not select either proposed site. 

To date, the District has approved and spent $239,000 in total, including consultant work on the needs assessment ($82,000), building assessments ($5,000), site analysis ($126,000), and community consultation for site selection ($26,000).

To address the concerns and questions remaining in the community, and to raise awareness of the current condition of municipal arts facilities in West Vancouver, Council resolved that the Arts & Culture Center Site Selection - Engagement Summary Report be received for information; and that $150,000 be expended to develop:

• additional community-wide engagement program on the next steps for arts and culture facilities in West Vancouver
• a governance model and fundraising plan for the replacement of the facilities for arts and culture in West Vancouver. 

This work will be conducted in 2022.

The 2021 budget was not typical in that it included initiatives that were funded from the provincial Safe Restart Grant and it was also conservatively developed to assume that many of the community services' programs would not be offered due to provincial health order restrictions. For the proposed 2022 budget, the community services' programs have been incorporated back into the budget which results in higher expenses but with an offsetting increase in revenues too. Excluding the two factors mentioned about the 2021 budget, the increase in expenses is approximately 3.8%.

The District provides five-year expense trending information in the Annual Report that is published each year. Please see section, Supplementary Information: Expenses, pages 67-69 of the 2020 Annual Report.

The Annual Report is published each year after the annual audit is conducted by the appointed Municipal Auditor and the financial statements presented to Council. This typically occurs in late spring each year. Therefore the 2021 actual expenses are not available now.

The budget book, Five-Year Financial Plan, is published and posted each year on the District's website. The section titled "Staffing Changes" shows the staffing changes over 3 years. The 2022 proposed budget (Preliminary Financial Plan 2022) includes staffing details from 2020 to 2022 on page 12.

Of the 13 new positions included in the 2021 budget, all but the Manager, Climate Action and Environment, were hired in 2021. As for the contract positions that were funded from the provincial COVID Safe Restart Grant, 7 out of 8 positions were hired in 2021 and the remaining position was filled at the start of 2022. 

A separate response will be provided later pertaining to the service-level improvements with the additional Planning and Development Services positions.

For 2022, one additional staff is included in the proposed budget. This new position, a Privacy Analyst, is to meet new provincial legislative demands including mandatory privacy breach reporting, enhanced privacy program and stricter privacy protection requirements.

The District provides five-year expense trending information in the Annual Report that is published each year. Please see section Supplementary Information: Expenses, pages 67–69 of the 2020 Annual Report. 

The Annual Report is published each year after the annual audit is conducted by the appointed Municipal Auditor and the financial statements presented to Council. This typically occurs in late spring each year. Therefore the 2021 actual expenses are not available now.

The budget book, Five-Year Financial Plan, is published and posted each year on the District's website. The section titled "Staffing Changes" shows the staffing changes over three years. The 2022 proposed budget (Preliminary Financial Plan 2022) includes staffing details from 2020 to 2022 on page 12. 

Prior years’ budget books can be found here.

The utility rates for 2022 were approved by Council on December 13, 2021

• Water Utility: 6% increase
• Sewer and Drainage Utility: 5% increase
• Solid Waste: 9% increase

An example of the proposed District levied taxes and utilities increases for a single-family dwelling is shown in the 2022 Budget Information Meetings Presentation which is posted on the District's website. Please refer to slide 25.

The impact of Provincial taxes collected by the District on behalf of other taxing authorities are not available yet and are also not within the District's control.

Staff have addressed this year’s impact of provincial property assessments in the 2022 Budget Information meetings, and a copy of the presentation is posted on the District's website (it can also be viewed as a video). On slide 24, you can see the proposed increase for a residential property assessed at $3.67M (single-family dwelling) and another property assessed at $1.61M (strata condominium). Slide 25 also provides an example of the proposed District levied taxes and utilities increases for a single-family dwelling.

This project's scope is to replace the underground drainage lines and the irrigation system for the upper sports field at Klahanie Park. This is the same type of work completed in the upper field at Klahanie a few years ago.

The Parks Department’s 2022 Work Plan has yet to be finalized, but we anticipate this work to be completed in fall 2022 or spring 2023. The project timing will also depend on the availability of qualified contractors.

This project is intended to improve irrigation and drainage, which will benefit the quality of the grass and safety for field users.